UK Budget ‘Headroom’ Has Become a Harmful Obsession, IFS Warns

The UK should replace its simple pass-fail approach to fiscal rules with a broader “traffic lights” system to end the “dysfunctional policy making” of recent years, the Institute of Fiscal Studies said.

In a paper calling for the current system to be overhauled, the think tank argued it was time to end the “aggressive gaming” of targets by government and take the political pressure off the Office for Budget Responsibility.