Fiscal sustainability report – July 2014

Our annual Fiscal sustainability report sets out long-term projections for spending, revenue and financial transactions, and assesses whether they imply a sustainable path for public sector debt. The FSR also analyses the health of the public sector’s balance sheet using both conventional National Accounts measures and the Whole of Government Accounts prepared using commercial accounting principles.

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Fiscal sustainability report - July 2014

July 10, 2014 – 2.52 MB

Supporting documents

Supplementary documents

Information or data which has been released as a result of external requests, since the original publication of the main document.

Presentations

Boxes

Within each of our key publications we include topical ‘boxes’. These self-contained analyses are unique to this publication and tend to cover recent developments in the economy or public finances that complement the main discussion of our analyses.

The treatment of pension liabilities in the National Accounts

The European System of National and Regional Accounts (ESA 10) changed the arrangements for funded defined benefit pension schemes. The new approach required that the net liabilities of these schemes for the future costs incurred from past activities were calculated using commercial accounting concepts. This box provided a summary of the effects that the new treatment would have, as well as its relevance to the Whole of Government Accounts (WGA).

Fiscal categories: Whole of Government Accounts and National accounts

Cross-cutting categories: Data revisions, Experimental statistics, Pensions

Pension flexibility and the long-term public finances

At Budget 2014, the Government announced a number of tax measures that increase the flexibility with which individuals can access their defined contribution (DC) pension assets. This box considered the effect of two possible sensitivities. First, the possibility that there would be more money flowing into the housing market, and second, that people could spend their pension pots relatively early in retirement, leading to greater reliance on income-related benefits.

Economy categories: Housing market, GDP by income, Property transactions

Cross-cutting categories: Pensions

Fiscal drag and price uprating

Fiscal drag and price uprating
We updated our July 2013 analysis of fiscal drag on income tax and NICs to reflect new data, our latest assumptions and the effect of measures announced over the past year. This box outlined how fiscal drag effects income tax and NICs receipts and the long-term assumptions used.

Fiscal categories: Receipts, Welfare spending, Financial transactions, National Insurance Contributions, Income tax, Student loans, State pension, Public spending

Cross-cutting categories: Fiscal drag and price uprating, Pensions

The evolution of population projections since 1955

The evolution of population projections since 1955
Population projections are subject to significant uncertainty, particularly over very long time horizons. This box outlined the error in successive population projections and the sources of error.

Economy categories: Labour market, Population and migration

Cross-cutting categories: Forecast process, Demographics

Migration and fiscal sustainability

In Annex A of our 2013 Fiscal sustainability report, we reviewed the assumptions that we make about the fiscal effects of net migration. In this box from our 2014 Fiscal sustainability report we summarised the migration-related issues that we consider explicitly in our long-term projections, those that are implicit in the material we use to produce them, and, importantly, those issues we do not consider – either because of our modelling techniques or because they fall outside the remit that Parliament has set the OBR.

Economy categories: Labour market, Population and migration

International comparisons of employment

International comparisons of employment
Earlier in the year, the Chancellor expressed an ambition “to have more people working than any of the other countries in the G7 group". This box compared countries employment rates and demonstrated the scope for labour market outcomes to differ substantially.

Economy categories: Labour market, Employment and unemployment

Cross-cutting categories: International comparisons