When Budgets Go Wrong: A £30 Billion Horror Story

When Budgets Go Wrong: A £30 Billion Horror Story

Imagine you're planning a party. You reckon it'll cost about £200 - venue hire, some crisps, a couple of playlists on Spotify, job done. A couple of years later, and you're somehow £330 deep, the party's still not happened, half your mates are no longer coming, and everyone's having a massive row about whether to even bother with the cake.

Does this sound familiar to you? Well this is exactly what the UK government's been going through with HS2 (High Speed 2 is a high-speed railway which has been under construction in England since 2019).

In 2009, the UK budgeted £37.5 billion for a high-speed rail line connecting London to Manchester and Leeds. Brilliant plan, right? Fast trains, better connectivity, economic growth. Except by 2024, just the London to Birmingham part - 140 miles - is now estimated to cost up to £67 billion. The northern sections? Cancelled entirely. The Euston station terminus? Almost didn't happen because of cost overruns.

That's an adverse variance of roughly £30 billion, or as I like to call it, "the most expensive train journey in British history that hasn't even left the station yet."

That serves as an introduction to budgets and variance analysis - where the difference between success and total financial shambles is whether you actually bother to track what you're spending versus what you initially planned to spend.

Why Every Business Needs a Budget

A budget is dead simple in theory: it's just a plan showing how much money you expect to come in (revenue) and how much you expect to splash out (costs) over a specific period, usually a year.

Think of it as a financial sat nav. Without it, you're just driving around hoping you'll somehow end up where you need to be, probably running out of petrol somewhere near Swindon at 2am.

IB Business Management Real-life Example: Disney doesn't just wake up one morning and go "Right, let's see what happens this year!" They budget everything. In 2025, their Experiences division (theme parks, resorts, cruises) brought in a record $10 billion in operating income. That didn't happen by accident. Every churro sold, every Mickey Mouse ear purchased, every ride built - all budgeted down to the last dollar.

When Disney budgets for a new attraction like the Avengers Campus at California Adventure, they're planning out:

• Revenue: ticket sales, merchandise, food and beverage

• Costs: construction, staff salaries, maintenance, electricity, marketing

Then, throughout the year, they compare actual figures to the budget. If something's off, they adjust. That's how you run a £94 billion company without it collapsing like a corner shop.

Building a Budget (IB Business Management Format Style)

Right, let's get practical. Here's how you actually construct a budget in the format IB examiners want to see:

Looks simple, right? That's the point. Budgets aren't meant to be rocket science - they're meant to be clear, practical plans that everyone can understand.

The magic happens when you compare this budget to what actually happens during the year. That's where variance analysis comes in.

Variance Analysis: When Reality Should Meet Your Plan

A variance is just the difference between what you budgeted for and what actually happened.

Let's say you budgeted for £500,000 in sales, but you actually sold £540,000 worth of stuff. That's a favourable variance of £40,000 - you did better than planned! Brilliant. Time to pop the champagne (which you can now afford).

But what if your salary costs were budgeted at £200,000, and they actually came in at £230,000? That's an adverse variance of £30,000 - you're spending more than planned, which eats into your profits.

Here's how you calculate it:

Variance = Actual Figure - Budgeted Figure

If the result helps profits (higher sales or lower costs) = Favourable Variance ✓
If the result hurts profits (lower sales or higher costs) = Adverse Variance ✗

The HS2 Variance Disaster

Remember our HS2 example? Let's look at why it became such a catastrophic adverse variance:

Seven Reasons HS2's Budget Exploded:

1. Bad initial estimate: The 2009 budget was based on "very, very immature data" - basically, they guessed before they had proper designs or contracts

2. Scope changes: The project kept changing what it was trying to do

3. Poor delivery: Project management failures throughout

4. Inflation: 27% construction inflation over just three years (2021-2024)

5. Brexit uncertainty: Made planning and supply chains unpredictable

6. Contractual problems: Cost-plus contracts that incentivised contractors to spend more

7. Poor forecasting: Setting budgets too early and then not adjusting realistically

As HS2's Chair Sir Jon Thompson admitted to MPs in January 2024: "The estimate was poor, the budget was set too early, and then when you get further into it you get much better information... and discover it's higher."

That's like planning your party for £200, then discovering halfway through that you've hired a top DJ (Calvin Harris) by mistake and he wants paying.

In October 2024, Transport Secretary Louise Haigh described the situation as "dire" and said costs had been "allowed to spiral out of control." By March 2025, the new CEO Mark Wild wrote a letter basically saying the whole thing was "unsustainable" and the programme was only one-third complete when it was planned to be three-quarters done.

Cost Centres vs Profit Centres: The Internal Budget Battle

Now, budgets aren't just for entire companies. Most big organisations split themselves into different departments, each with their own budget to manage. These are called cost centres and profit centres.

Cost Centres: The Departments That Only Spend Money

A cost centre is a department that doesn't directly generate revenue - it just costs money to run.

Think about Disney's HR department. They don't sell anything. They recruit staff, handle payroll, sort out employee issues. Essential? Probably. Revenue-generating? Nope. They're a pure cost centre.

Other examples:

• Research & Development (R&D): Disney's Imagineering team designing new rides

• Marketing: The team creating those ads that make you want to visit Disneyland

• Customer Service: The people answering phones when your kid loses their Mickey Mouse hat

• IT Support: Keeping the computer systems running

Cost centres are held accountable for staying within their budget. If the marketing team is given £1 million for the year, they'd better not spend £1.2 million without a very good reason.

Profit Centres: The Departments That Actually Make Money

A profit centre is a department or division responsible for both its revenues and its costs - meaning they're accountable for their profit.

Disney is brilliant at this. Look at their structure:

Disney's Major Profit Centres (2025 figures):

• Entertainment Division: £41 billion revenue - includes Disney+ streaming, films, TV

• Experiences Division: £36 billion revenue - theme parks, resorts, cruises, merchandise

• Sports Division (ESPN): Separate profit tracking

Each division is run like its own mini-business. If Disneyland Paris isn't profitable, that's the Experiences division's problem to solve. If Disney+ is losing money (which it was until recently), that's Entertainment's challenge.

Within these divisions, you've got even smaller profit centres. Each Disney theme park is its own profit centre. Each Disney store location? Profit centre. Every branch or location that can be measured for its own revenue and costs becomes its own accountable unit.

This is brilliant for several reasons.

Why Cost and Profit Centres Are Actually Genius

1. Accountability

When Manchester Disney Store has a rubbish year, there's no hiding behind "well, the company as a whole did okay." Nope. That manager knows their store's performance, and so does head office. Makes people focus.

2. Better Decision-Making

Managers who control their own budgets can make quicker decisions. The Disneyland Paris manager doesn't need to ring Disney HQ in California every time they want to adjust marketing spend or hire seasonal staff. They've got their budget, they know their targets, crack on.

3. Motivation

There's something deeply satisfying about being trusted with your own budget. It shows the company believes you're capable. Many managers find this empowerment highly motivating - they feel ownership over their results.

4. Strategic Planning

When you can see which profit centres are doing brilliantly and which are struggling, you can make better decisions about where to invest. Disney's streaming division (Entertainment) was losing money for years. They knew this because they tracked it as a profit centre. So they cut costs, raised prices, and by Q4 2024, it finally turned profitable at £321 million. Without that clear tracking, they wouldn't have known when to act.

5. Monitoring and Control

With hundreds of locations worldwide, Disney can't possibly watch everything at once. But by having each unit track its own variance from budget, head office can quickly spot problems. If one theme park's food costs are way over budget, that's a red flag. Investigate.

When Cost and Profit Centres Go Wrong

But - and this is important for your exam - cost and profit centres aren't perfect. They can create problems.

1. Unhealthy Competition

When every department is fighting to look good on their own numbers, they might stop helping each other. Imagine Disney's marketing team (cost centre) refuses to promote a new Disney+ show (entertainment profit centre) because it'll blow their own budget. The company loses, even though one department's numbers look good.

2. Fixed Cost Arguments

How do you split the rent between departments? If the company pays £1 million a year for a building, how much does HR pay vs Marketing vs Finance? It's arbitrary, and it causes massive arguments. "Why are we paying 30% when we only use 20% of the space?!"

3. Short-Term Thinking

If profit centre managers are assessed quarterly, they might make decisions that boost short-term profits but hurt the long term. Cut training budgets, delay maintenance, reduce quality - all to make this quarter's numbers look good.

4. Gaming the System

Smart (but dodgy) managers learn to manipulate the numbers. Delay expenses until next year. Push sales forward. Make your variance look favourable even if you're not actually performing well.

Why Budgets and Variances Matter for Strategic Planning

Budgets aren't just accounting exercises. They're strategic tools that turn your business plans into reality.

When Netflix decided to spend $18 billion on content in 2025 (which we covered in the last entry), that wasn't a random number. It was a strategic decision, budgeted carefully, with variance analysis happening monthly to ensure they're on track.

Every business decision needs funding. Want to expand into new markets? Need a budget. Want to develop a new product? Budget. Want to hire more staff? Budget, budget, budget.

And variance analysis tells you whether your strategy is actually working:

• Sales below budget? Maybe your product isn't as popular as you thought. Adjust the strategy.

• Costs above budget? Either your efficiency is rubbish, or your initial budget was unrealistic. Fix it.

• Better-than-expected profits? You've found something that works. Do more of it.

Disney's streaming division provides a perfect example. For years, Disney+ showed adverse variances - it was losing money compared to their profit targets. The company stuck with the strategy because they believed in long-term growth, but they adjusted tactics: raised prices, cracked down on password sharing, introduced an ad-supported tier.

By Q4 2024, Disney+ finally hit profitability. The variance analysis throughout those loss-making years guided every adjustment they made.

The HS2 Lessons: What IB Business Management Students Need to Know

Let's circle back to HS2 because it's genuinely one of the best (worst?) examples of budget failure in modern British history.

What went wrong:

• Budget set way too early with terrible data

• No flexibility built in for inevitable changes

• Poor project management throughout

• Contractors incentivised to spend more, not less

• Political pressure to stick to original (impossible) numbers

• Failure to adjust budget realistically as problems emerged

What HS2 should have done (and what your exam answers should mention):

• Set budget ranges, not fixed numbers, until designs were final

• Build in contingency for unexpected costs (they did, but not enough)

• Renegotiate contracts to align incentives properly

• Regular variance analysis with honest reporting to stakeholders

• Ministerial oversight from the start (they only added this in 2024!)

• Accept that budgets need updating when circumstances change

The new HS2 CEO Mark Wild, appointed in December 2024, basically said in March 2025: "We started construction too soon, before we had stable designs. We had unrealistic schedules. We failed to control costs." That's remarkably honest, and it's the perfect example of what NOT to do with budgeting.

IB Business Management Exam Gold

When you're answering questions about budgets and variances, examiners want to see you:

1. Calculate variances correctly

• Show your working: Actual - Budget = Variance

• Label whether it's favourable or adverse

• Explain why it matters for profit

2. Understand context

• Not all adverse variances are bad (what if you spent more on marketing and sales doubled?)

• Not all favourable variances are good (what if you cut R&D costs and now have no new products?)

3. Make strategic connections

• How does this variance affect the business strategy?

• What should managers do about it?

• What does it tell us about the business's performance?

4. Apply real examples

• HS2's cost overruns showing poor budgetary control

• Disney's profit centres enabling accountability

• Netflix's content spending showing strategic investment

5. Discuss limitations

• Budgets are based on predictions that might be wrong

• External factors (like inflation, wars or pandemics) can wreck budgets

• Cost/profit centres can create competition between departments

• Variance analysis is backwards-looking - it tells you what went wrong, not what to do next

IB Business Management To The Point

Nobody wakes up excited to do variance analysis. It's not sexy, it's not glamorous, it's just comparing numbers in spreadsheets.

Until your project costs £30 billion more than planned and gets cancelled halfway through.

Or until your streaming division finally turns profitable after years of losses because someone was tracking those variances and making adjustments.

Or until your theme park's food costs become absurd and someone notices before it wipes out the whole year's profit.

Budgets and variance analysis are the difference between businesses that know where they're going and businesses that are just hoping for the best. They're the difference between Disney making £10 billion profit from theme parks and HS2 becoming the most expensive railway never quite finished.

Stay well,