Office For Budget Responsibility must be reformed, warns CEBR
LEADING think-tank the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) has today called for urgent reform of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), saying it needs to establish its independence from George Osborne’s Treasury.
Doug McWilliams, chief executive of the CEBR, said “drastic change” was necessary after the “chequered beginnings” of the OBR.
The government’s new tax and spending watchdog’s independence was called into question after the decision to bring forward publication of its employment forecast following reports of a leaked Treasury document indicating that up to 1.3m jobs in the public and private sectors were at risk from spending cuts.
“Its chequered beginnings disappoint me,” added McWilliams.