The table illustrates the goverment investment across five policy-related fields in three nations: Germany, Italy and the UK in 2009.
A glance reveals that, with the exception of Italy, all countries made their largest investment into the health sector. However, environmental protection consituted the smallest share of total government spending across the three nations.
In terms of the health sector, government expenditure in Germany and the UK took the lead, accounting for 7.1% and 7.8% of total investment respectively, while the figure for Italy ranked second at 7.5%. Public service investment made up only 4.6% of total spending in the UK, compared to 6.6% in Germany. Meanwhile, Italy allocated the largest proportion to public services, at 8.6%.
With regard to environmental protection, all nations took the smallest proportion of their investment to this sector, at around 1% of total spending. Similarly, expenditure on economic affairs accounted for between 4% and just under 5% across the three countries. The UK’s investment in education ranked second at 6.4%, compared with nearly 5% in both Germany and Italy.