The Office for Budget Responsibility established an advisory panel of leading economic and fiscal experts in 2011 to help develop and scrutinise its work programme and methods. Since the establishment of the panel, we have held regular meetings in which we have discussed the content of each of our core publications, as well as the development of our working and briefing papers. The panel has provided valuable feedback on these outputs and members have made themselves available to staff to comment on their individual areas of expertise.

We’re now looking to update and expand the way that we conduct external engagement at the OBR, including drawing on a broader range of experts who we work with on a topic-led basis.

We are inviting expressions of interest (EoIs) from academics, economists, researchers and industry specialists to join our new advisory panel. Members will be chosen by the OBR’s Budget Responsibility Committee (BRC) for their expertise in at least one of these six categories:

  • macroeconomics and econometrics;
  • public sector finances and public economics;
  • financial markets and corporate finance;
  • energy and climate change;
  • health and longevity; and
  • labour market and migration.

We anticipate conducting annual meetings to discuss our longer-term work planning, alongside engaging with topic experts around the time of relevant publications. Members of the group would be expected to participate in these meetings, including informing the BRC and OBR staff on developments in their fields and providing feedback on forecast judgements, methodology and analysis.

The OBR has a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, so it’s important our advisory panel comes from the widest possible range of backgrounds, bringing us the widest possible range of perspectives and ways of thinking. We are therefore keen to hear from those from groups that are under-represented in economics and policy-making. The OBR is committed to equal opportunities regardless of age, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability or any other determinate factor. We collect and monitor diversity information to assess how we can improve, and report this information in our annual reports.

Please submit your EoI in the form of a short email to [email protected] by 30 April, indicating which of the topics listed above you are interested in advising us on, and providing a brief summary of your expertise in this area. We are also happy for interested individuals to get in touch beyond this date, as we plan to review advisory panel membership on an ongoing basis.

Note: Members of our advisory panel will not be involved in the production of the OBR’s official economic and fiscal forecasts, and will not have access to them prior to publication. Judgements on the medium-term forecasts will remain the sole responsibility of the three independent members of the BRC. Advisory panel membership is on a pro-bono basis.