This article continues the annual series which began in June 1962.
Provisional details of the national debt outstanding at 31st March 1978, analysed by type of debt, have already been published in the May 1978 issue of Financial Statistics. This analysis concentrates on the holders of the debt. It first distinguishes between official holdings (i.e. all debt held by central government funds and accounts-including, for example, those of the Paymaster General and the national insurance funds-and by the Bank of England), and market holdings, and then goes on to analyse in detail the distribution of market holdings of sterling debt by type of holder.
Distribution of the national debt at end-March 1978