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UK economy
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The Fiscal Responsibility Act (February 2010): The Fiscal Responsibility Act achieved Royal Assent on the 10th February 2010 . The Act and associated explanatory notes are available on the Parliament website.
The Code for Fiscal Stability (November 1998): the Code for Fiscal Stability is designed to address past weaknesses in the fiscal policy framework. In particular, it strengthens the openness, transparency and accountability of fiscal policy. It improves the quality of information given to the public, the lack of which in the past was an important factor underlying policy mistakes.
The Government's Fiscal Framework (November 2008): In 1997, the Government introduced a new fiscal framework. With evidence supporting the assessment that the economic cycle which started in 1997-98 ended in 2006-07, the Government is able to review the performance of the fiscal framework over a full economic cycle. Chapter 1 of this document outlines the rationale for the establishment of the framework from 1997, and how it was designed to operate. Chapter 2 assesses its performance over the economic cycle 1997-98 to 2006-07. Chapter 3 outlines how the fiscal framework will respond in current exceptional circumstances.
Fiscal Policy: Lessons from the Last Economic Cycle (November 1997) (PDF 86KB): this paper sets out the key lessons that the present Government learned from the conduct of macroeconomic policy during the preceding economic cycle and outlines the ways in which these lessons contributed to the design of the current fiscal framework.
Delivering Economic Stability: Lessons from Macroeconomic Policy Experience (November 1998) (PDF 106KB): reviews past macroeconomic policy experience and draws lessons from this experience to inform the development of the new macroeconomic framework, which is designed to deliver economic stability. Economic stability helps businesses and people as well as Government to plan for the long term. It contributes to achieving the Government’s central objective of raising the economy’s trend rate of growth and achieving rising prosperity through creating economic and employment opportunities for all.
Reforming Britain's Economic and Financial Policy (2001): HM Treasury book, edited by Ed Balls and Gus O'Donnell, with foreword by Gordon Brown, setting out how the Government has reformed the macroeconomic policy framework in the UK.
Analysing UK Fiscal Policy (November 1999): this paper describes the objectives of fiscal policy, the institutional framework to deliver them and analyses the interpretation of the main fiscal aggregates.
Fiscal Policy: Current and Capital Spending (June 1998): this paper discusses the rationale for the Government's two fiscal rules in the light of trends in current and capital spending and their interaction with the fiscal policy framework.
Planning Sustainable Public Spending: Lessons from Previous Policy Experience (November 2000) (PDF 82KB): the history of public expenditure control in the UK has highlighted a number of problems with the way in which governments have traditionally approached the planning and management of resources. This paper describes these previous problems and how the new system, introduced in 1997, has learnt from them.
Fiscal Policy: A New Framework for Public Investment (December 1998 )(PDF 54KB): this paper looks at the role of public investment and how it supports the government's strategy for stability and long term growth.
Core Debt: An Approach to Monitoring the Sustainable Investment Rule (April 2002) (PDF 84KB): from Budget 2002 on, the Government will publish figures for a measure of public sector net debt excluding cyclical fluctuations. The concept is called 'Core Debt' reflecting the fact that its evolution is determined primarily by borrowing for long-term investment rather than as a result of cyclical movements in the economy. This paper sets out the details of how core debt is defined, together with an explanation of the methodology used to calculate it.
