Former Chairman
Robert Chote was Chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility from October 2010 until October 2020, having been reappointed for a second five-year term in September 2015. He was succeeded by Richard Hughes.
Robert also chaired the OECD’s network of parliamentary budget officials and independent fiscal institutions, as well as the external advisory group of the Irish parliamentary budget office.
Previously Robert served as Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies from 2002 to 2010, as an advisor to senior management at the International Monetary Fund from 1999 to 2002, as Economics Editor of the Financial Times from 1995 to 1999, and as an economics and business writer on the Independent and Independent on Sunday from 1990 to 1994.
Robert is chair of the Royal Statistical Society’s advisory group on public data literacy. He is also a member of the Policy Committee of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, the advisory committee of the ESRC Centre for Macroeconomics, and the Council of Westcott House Theological College in Cambridge. He is a governor of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR).
Robert was educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge (where he is now an Honorary Fellow), at City University in London and at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC. He has an honorary doctorate from the University of York.
Robert is married to Sharon White, Chairman of The John Lewis Partnership. She is also Deputy Chairman of Sadler’s Wells and a non-executive director of Barratt Developments.