Advisory panel
The Office for Budget Responsibility established an advisory panel of leading economic and fiscal experts in 2011 to help develop and scrutinise its work programme and forecasting methods. Since then, we have held regular meetings in which we have discussed our work priorities, core publications, and analytical approaches. The panel was revised and expanded in 2023 to include a wider range of experts across six different aspects of our work. In March 2023, we sought expressions of interest from academics, economists, researchers and industry specialists with expertise in at least one of these six categories:
- macroeconomics and econometrics;
- public sector finances and public economics;
- financial markets and corporate finance;
- energy and climate change;
- health and longevity; and
- labour market and migration.
The revised advisory panel, announced in August 2023, comprises the following members:
Andrew Scott, London Business School;
Anita Charlesworth, Health Foundation;
Arun Advani, University of Warwick;
Caroline Bain, Capital Economics;
DeAnne Julius, Chatham House;
Fergus Cumming, UK Health Security Agency;
Gene Frieda, Caxton and London School of Economics;
Gertjan Vlieghe, Element;
Jacob Nell, EDF Trading;
John Llewellyn, Independent Economics;
Jonathan Gillham, PA Consulting;
Jumana Saleheen, Vanguard;
Kevin Daly, Goldman Sachs;
Mairi Spowage, University of Strathclyde and Fraser of Allander Institute;
Michael McMahon, University of Oxford;
Moyeen Islam, Barclays;
Rachel Ngai, London School of Economics;
Rita De La Feria, University of Leeds;
Tera Allas, McKinsey & Company;
Tony Wilson, Institute for Employment Studies;
Vicki Perry, Georgetown University Law Center;
Wendy Carlin, University College London;
Yael Selfin, KPMG.
We will conduct annual meetings with the whole panel to discuss our longer-term work planning, alongside engaging with topic experts in the run-up to relevant publications. Members of the panel will share insights on developments in their fields and provide input on key forecast issues, methods, and analysis.
Thinktank roundtable
Since 2020, the OBR has also conducted periodic roundtables with a set of thinktanks with standing macroeconomic expertise to discuss recent economic and fiscal developments and issues that are relevant to our forecasts and analysis. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, Institute for Government, National Institute for Economic and Social Research, and Resolution Foundation have regularly participated in these discussions and shared their insights.
Members of our advisory panel and the thinktank roundtable are not involved in the production of the OBR’s official economic and fiscal forecasts, do not have access to them prior to publication, and are not assumed to have endorsed their contents. Judgements on the medium-term forecasts will remain the sole responsibility of the three independent members of the BRC. Membership is on a pro-bono basis.