"It is the duty of the Office to examine and report on the sustainability of the public finances"
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 methods. Since the establishment of the panel, we have held regular meetings in which we have discussed the content of each of our core publications, as well as the…
Government borrowing in February 2023 was £16.7 billion, up £9.7 billion on last year, largely thanks to spending on energy schemes. Year-to-date borrowing of £132.2 billion is up £15.5 billion (13.2 per cent) on last year. But it is only up £6.9 billion (5.9 per cent) on a like-for-like basis (correcting for student loans figures…
While not a statutory obligation of the OBR, the publication of monthly profiles for the public sector finances consistent with our most recent EFO is something we started doing in May 2020, shortly after presenting our initial Covid reference scenario in the early weeks of the pandemic. Given the extraordinary pressures that the pandemic was…
Over the past 18 months, we have undertaken two separate user surveys to gather feedback on the length, content, and accessibility of our Economic and fiscal outlooks (EFOs). This article reports on the main messages from those surveys and how we plan to respond. December 2021 survey Our first user survey was conducted over December…
January is a big month for tax receipts, with self-assessment (SA) payments due. At £35.1 billion, SA receipts exceeded our November forecast by £5.8 billion (partly reflecting timing effects). Alongside large downward revisions to borrowing in previous months, this has left year-to-date borrowing in the first ten months of 2022-23 £22.0 billion below our forecast…
Candidates for a non-executive member of the OBR are sought to replace Sir Christopher Kelly, whose second term ends on 20 June 2023. This position presents a rare opportunity to play a key role in the governance of the UK’s independent fiscal council, which operates at the heart of the UK Government’s fiscal policy framework….
On 19 December the Chancellor announced that the Spring Budget 2023 will be held on Wednesday 15 March and commissioned us to publish our latest outlook for the economy and public finances that day. We have now agreed the timetable for the forecast process and published the detail below.
Our latest Forecast evaluation report (FER) will be published at 11am on Tuesday 31 January. Our FER examines how our forecasts compare to subsequent outturn data and identifies lessons for future forecasts. This report will focus on how our March 2022 and November 2022 economy and fiscal forecasts for 2021-22 fared against the outturns.
Borrowing in November was £22.0 billion, the highest November figure since monthly records began, largely thanks to a sharp rise in public spending due to the cost of energy and cost-of-living support schemes introduced this year. Borrowing in the first eight months of 2022-23 was £7.8 billion below our November forecast profile published today, largely…
We have published updated monthly profiles for receipts, spending and borrowing in 2022-23 consistent with our November 2022 Economic and fiscal outlook below and alongside our monthly commentary on the public finances.