Office For Budget Responsibility (OBR)

LOCATION: London  

Number of Placements: 1

SALARY: £29,222

About the OBR

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) was established by the Chancellor in May 2010 to provide independent assessments of the economy, public finances, and fiscal sustainability. We provide independent forecasts of the economy and public finances to inform the Government's fiscal policy decisions, examine the impact of the Government's policy decisions on the public finances, and assess the prospects for achieving the Government's fiscal targets. We publish reports on long-term fiscal sustainability, fiscal risks, and trends in welfare spending, and run a wider work programme of research and analysis into economic and fiscal issues.

The OBR is comprised of the Budget Responsibility Committee (BRC) – Richard Hughes (Chair), Professor David Miles, and Tom Josephs – who are currently supported by around 50 civil servants, including economists, public finance analysts, and business support staff. 

The Role 

As we are a small organisation with a flat structure, the placement student roles will offer direct exposure to senior staff and the opportunities to work collaboratively, develop their analytical skills, and apply their academic knowledge of economic thinking in support of a range of the OBR objectives and liaise with stakeholders across government.  Students are expected to go through a steep learning curve and to work independently from the offset. This includes:

• Working with relatively little oversight but with a high degree of collaboration with others in the team to ensure output of the highest quality.

• Taking responsibility for own actions, outputs and analysis while ensuring a high degree of communication, particularly with stakeholders.

• Attending relevant seminars in order to gain wider context to government and current affairs as well as further developing skills.

• Reading articles, economic journals and published papers in order to be more aware of a wider political and economic landscape.

• Attending any relevant training to gain both broaden and deepen knowledge, including Excel and other statistical software courses.

Publication Management 

Students are tasked with ensuring that the presentation of the OBR analysis follows the pre-determined format across all OBR publications. They are expected to be innovative in their formatting of charts and tables to manage their time efficiently and maximise quality. Specific tasks and responsibilities include:

• Managing the charts and tables process and ensuring they are created to the correct specifications for all publications. 

• Creating new ways of presenting data to provide high-quality publications and maintain consistency across them.  

• Managing and updating the historical forecast database.

Corporate Objectives

Students support the OBR to achieve its corporate objectives. Specific tasks include:

• Working effectively with their line manager by updating them on the progress of own work and flagging any emerging pressures and issues. 

• Working well within the team by being aware of roles and responsibilities of each team member.

• Quality-assuring own and others’ analysis. 

• Working collaboratively to organise the OBR end of year party and maintaining (and updating as appropriate) a handover pack for future OBR students. 

The successful candidate will be assigned to either the Fiscal or the Economy team. Depending on the apprentice’s experience, there may be opportunities to take on additional tasks or projects.

Eligibility Requirements: 

Individuals appointed to the OBR will be subject to satisfactory references, Civil Service Nationality Rules and National Security Vetting. To allow for meaningful checks to be carried out applicants will normally need to have lived in the UK for at least three out of the past five years.