"It is the duty of the Office to examine and report on the sustainability of the public finances"
The Chancellor nominated Richard Hughes to serve a second and final term as Chair of the OBR. Following a reappointment hearing, the Treasury Committee of the House of Commons approved the re-appointment on 15 July 2025, saying that they were ‘satisfied that Richard Hughes has the appropriate professional competence and personal independence to continue in…
We have published our response to the third external review which sets out how we are addressing the 11 recommendations made by Laura van Geest in her February 2025 review of the OBR. These recommendations span our independence, analytical infrastructure, and communications impact. We have already implemented the recommendations on independence and are progressing work…
Richard Hughes distils the key messages from our latest Fiscal risks and sustainability report in his press conference presentation and accompanying speaking note. Watch back on YouTube here:
Efforts to put the UK’s public finances on a sustainable footing after a series of global shocks have met with only limited and temporary success in recent years, leaving the UK with the sixth-highest debt, fifth-highest deficit, and third-highest borrowing costs among 36 advanced economies. Against this more vulnerable backdrop, the risks to the fiscal…
Our 2025 Forecast evaluation report marks a shift from previous reports, providing an updated assessment of our forecast performance over the past 15 years, an in-depth evaluation of successive forecasts made for fiscal year 2023-24, and a set of lessons learnt for our future economy and fiscal forecasts. In doing so, the report evaluates the…
This morning’s ONS release estimates that borrowing in the first two months of 2025-26 totalled £37.7 billion. This is £1.6 billion above the same period last year and £2.9 billion below the monthly profile consistent with our March forecast. Central government spending is £1.6 billion below the forecast profile, though spending data is always highly…
We have published our latest long-term assumptions, consistent with the forecast in our March 2025 Economic and fiscal outlook (EFO) and additional information on the number of award reviews that will be affected by tightening criteria in the March 2025 personal independence payment policy costing, below and on the March 2025 EFO page.
Since the publication of our March 2025 Economic and fiscal outlook (EFO) we have received a request for further detail on key fiscal aggregates for our trade scenarios. We have published this new supplementary forecast information below and on the March 2025 EFO page.
We have published monthly profiles for receipts, spending and borrowing in 2025-26, consistent with our March 2025 Economic and fiscal outlook, below and alongside our monthly commentary on the public finances.
In this paper, we present a new overlapping generations model of the UK economy. It takes a detailed approach to real-world trends around demographics, life-cycle behaviour and differences within and between generations, all in a general equilibrium setting. Calibrated to match UK economic data and reflect key features of our tax, spending and welfare systems,…