"It is the duty of the Office to examine and report on the sustainability of the public finances"
The pandemic delivered one of the largest peacetime shocks to the UK economy in history last year. And that resulted in the largest forecast errors on record. But, as we document in this year’s Forecast evaluation report, it also provided several important lessons about economic and fiscal forecasting as such a large and novel shock…
On 9 December alongside the Forecast evaluation report, we published monthly profiles for receipts, spending and borrowing in 2021-22 consistent with our October 2021 Economic and fiscal outlook, updated ready reckoners and a working paper on how to improve the representation of uncertainty around our central forecasts.
Our annual FER examines how our forecasts compare to subsequent outturn data and identifies lessons for future forecasts. The pandemic brought about the largest shock to the economy and public finances since the OBR was established. This report will look at its impact on our forecasts over 2020-21, and what we can learn for future…
Our latest Forecast evaluation report (FER) will be published at 11am on Thursday 9 December. Our annual FER examines how our forecasts compare to subsequent outturn data and identifies lessons for future forecasts. The pandemic brought about the largest shock to the economy and public finances since the OBR was established. This report will look…
Next year’s Forecast evaluation report will look back at what will probably be the largest official economic forecast errors ever, reflecting the full effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy and public finances in 2020-21. In this year’s brief report, we look back at our March 2018 and March 2019 forecasts for 2019-20. Both…
Our annual Forecast evaluation report (FER), examines how our forecasts compare to subsequent outturn data and identifies lessons for future forecasts. This time we have streamlined the FER to focus on how our March 2018 and March 2019 economy and fiscal forecasts for 2019-20 fared against the outturns. The report will be published here on…
Our first post-referendum forecast – from November 2016 – has performed remarkably well for GDP growth in the period since mid-2016. But despite that we overestimated borrowing in 2018-19 – because the public finances at the time of the referendum were in better shape than the available data suggested. Read more about the Welfare trends report…