Category Archive: What’s new

First Welfare trends report published

Our first Welfare trends report looks back at the past three decades of welfare spending and forward to prospects over the coming five years. We consider the key risks to our forecast for welfare spending, both inside and outside the Government’s ‘welfare cap’. Supporting documents can be accessed via the main Welfare trends report page…

Forecast evaluation report – October 2014

Our latest Forecast evaluation report focuses on developments in 2013-14, a year that saw growth pick up strongly and the budget deficit narrow further. In particular, we consider why it was that we under-estimated the pick-up in growth from early 2013, but why did the budget deficit not fall more rapidly as a consequence. We…

Working paper No 7: Crisis and consolidation in the public finances

Our 7th Working Paper explains the evolution of the public finances from the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2007-08 to the end of our forecast in 2018-19. This period saw the largest peacetime shock to the public finances in living memory, and ends with one of the biggest deficit reduction programmes seen in…

First external review of the OBR published

The OBR’s non-executive members commissioned Kevin Page to lead the first External review into the work of the OBR in April. The Review concludes that the OBR has “laudably achieved the core duties of its mandate” and “has succeeded in reducing perceptions of bias in fiscal and economic forecasting”. It also makes recommendations on how…

OBR Working Paper series

The latest in our series of Working Papers were published on 10 July 2014. Working Paper No.5 – Output gap measurement: judgement and uncertainty uses a range of methods to demonstrate the uncertainty of measuring the output gap and considers the appropriate definition in the context of examining the UK public finances.   Working Paper…

External review of the OBR

Kevin Page, former Parliamentary Budget Officer for Canada, has been appointed to lead an external review into the work of the OBR, consistent with the requirements of the legislation underpinning the OBR.    

Policy costings and our forecast

The Charter for Budget Responsibility requires that the OBR provides “independent scrutiny and certification of the Government’s policy costings”. Briefing paper No. 6: Policy costings and our forecast describes how we approach the costings process, including the roles of the Treasury and other relevant departments, and how we incorporate the impact of policy measures in…

Costing pre-election policy proposals

Robert Chote has given written and oral evidence to the Treasury Committee on the costing of party policy proposals in the run up to general elections.