How the UK’s Fiscal Watchdog Holds Sway Over a £1.5 Trillion Budget

Britain’s Office for Budget Responsibility, a slimmed-down version of the Congressional Budget Office in the US, may be just 15 years old but it’s already one of the most powerful players in the UK.

The OBR’s five-year forecasts shape people’s lives by determining how much the government can spend and how much it needs to tax to fund what’s projected to be a £1.5 trillion ($1.9 trillion) annual budget by the end of the decade. Charlie Bean, a former director at the OBR, said the judgments he made in his four years at the fiscal watchdog were more consequential than anything he did in his nearly 14-year career at the Bank of England, where he ascended to deputy governor.