Sections · PESA departmental group
Small and Independent Bodies
Bodies outside the main departments, such as Parliament, the National Audit Office, HM Land Registry, Ofsted and the Competition and Markets Authority. In 2025-26 the bodies in this section spent £3.3bn on services. £2.3bn of it (70.6%) can be followed to who received it, and at most 71.8% counting payees who are named but can't be identified yet.
- Reached an identified organisation
- Reached a recipient the publisher did not name
- Reached people, counted by benefit
- Reached staff (pay) or holders of government debt (interest), followed as one published total
- Named payee, not yet identified (may be another public body)
- Not followed
How far it is followed, and why the rest can't be
- 4 of 9 publishers' files cover part of the yearmeasured
Their 2025-26 records cover fewer than 12 months; the table below gives each publisher's months.
- Below the publication threshold
Payments under £25,000 (central government and the NHS) or £500 (councils) are not published one by one. Some publishers list every payment anyway; most do not.
- Pay: followed to staff as one total£2.2bnmeasured
Wages are never published person by person, and must not be. The staff costs of the 29 bodies in this section, from HM Treasury's OSCAR database (2025-26, provisional outturn), are counted as followed to their staff.
Where the records come from
Each publisher's 2025-26 payment records, and where their money went. "Identified" means matched to a registered company, charity or other organisation outside government; "named only", a payee named in the record but not yet matched; "passed on", paid to another public body.
| Publisher | Months | Records | Identified | Named only | Withheld | Passed on |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HM Land Registry | 12 | 33,906 | £93m | £18m | £0 | £19m |
| Competition and Markets Authority | 12 | 238 | £16m | £8m | £0 | £3m |
| Ofsted | 12 | 276 | £10m | £8m | £0 | £7m |
| The Water Services Regulation Authority | 12 | 279 | £19m | £2m | £0 | £850k |
| Northern Ireland Office group assumed | 11 | 75 | £184k | £2m | £0 | £4m |
| The Charity Commission | 12 | 47 | £2m | £135k | £0 | £2m |
| Government Actuary's Department | 10 | 33 | £298k | £1m | £0 | £2m |
| Ofqual | 10 | 27 | £2m | £67k | £0 | £448k |
| Scotland Office group assumed | 8 | 16 | £0 | £115k | £0 | £2m |
The largest payees not yet identified
Payees paid £5m or more. Named in the records as shown, but not yet matched to a registered organisation or a public body. Some may be public bodies; until they are matched they are counted as followed by name only.
| Payee, as published | 2025-26 |
|---|---|
| GOVERNMENT PROPERTY AGENCY C/O BNP PARIBAS REAL ESTATE | £11m |
What PESA says this section spends on
| Function | 2025-26 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| General public services | £2.8bn | 86% |
| Education | £256m | 8% |
| Economic affairs | £209m | 6% |
| Public order and safety | £7m | 0% |