The Chancellor launched the interim Office for Budget Responsibility on 17 May 2010. Until there is a statutory basis for the new arrangements, the Comptroller & Auditor General’s duties under the 1998 Finance Act remain. Under the Act, he has a duty to examine and report on conventions and assumptions underlying the fiscal projections that are submitted to him by the Treasury for examination.

To reflect the interim arrangements, the Chancellor has requested that the Comptroller & Auditor General examine whether key economic and fiscal assumptions underpinning the interim Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts were independently arrived at.