Category Archive: Economic and fiscal outlook

We have restated our March 2019 borrowing forecast to include recent ONS statistical changes but have not incorporated any other new data, new judgements nor include an update to the economy forecast. After incorporating these changes, borrowing has increased materially by around £20bn each year. We wrote to the Treasury on 29 October about our intention to publish…

Publication of our restated forecast will no longer go ahead today following advice from the Cabinet Secretary. As we notified the Treasury and Treasury Select Committee on 29 October, we had planned to publish a technical restatement of our March public finance forecast this morning, bringing it into line with current ONS statistical treatment –…

The Chancellor used last week’s Spending Round to announce a significant increase in departmental spending in 2020-21. The OBR’s Budget Responsibility Committee gave evidence to the Treasury Select Committee today on the fiscal implications of the announcement. In addition, Robert Chote has written to the Interim Chair, John Mann, explaining our role during a spending…

Robert Chote distils the key messages from our latest Economic and fiscal outlook – published today – in his press conference presentation and accompanying speaking note.

March 2019 All policies announced since Budget 2018 were presented to the Office for Budget Responsibility at Spring Statement 2019. They were scrutinised, certified as reasonable, central estimates and were included in our forecasts. In our March 2019 Economic and fiscal outlook we have published an assessment on the level of uncertainty associated with each of the…

Stronger income tax receipts and lower debt interest payments have delivered the Chancellor a modest fiscal windfall. His higher public spending plans offset only a little of that, with most banked to provide greater headroom against his structural borrowing target in 2020-21. But he is still not yet on course to balance the budget by…

Economic growth in the UK and globally has slowed since the Budget in October, leading us to revise down our near-term GDP forecast. But tax receipts have performed better than we expected in the final months of 2018-19 and we judge that much of this buoyancy will endure. Together with downward pressure on debt interest…

October 2018 All policies presented to the Office for Budget Responsibility at Budget 2018 were included in our forecasts but three could not be certified as reasonable, central estimates. The Government’s Budget 2018 policy costings document briefly describes the methodologies underpinning these costings. In our October 2018 Economic and fiscal outlook we have published an assessment on…

At first glance the outlook for the public finances in the medium term looks much the same as it did in March. But this masks a significant improvement in the underlying pace of deficit reduction, that on its own would have put the Government on course to achieve its objective of a balanced budget for…