Its fiscal forecasts are less comprehensive, and it is less accountable to monitors.

It provides economic and fiscal forecasts as inputs into the budgetary planning process.

But in interviews and on the stump, the candidates tend to echo professional budgeteers whose fiscal forecast is still "fair to partly cloudy."

I turn now to the fiscal forecasts for our debt and deficit.

We also test how robust this judgement is, given the uncertainty inherent in all fiscal forecasts.

Mr. Crecca called Mr. Levy's grim fiscal forecast a political ploy.

We also have an executive responsibility to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to deliver the fiscal and economic forecasts he needs to take tax and spending decisions.

Our briefing paper Briefing paper No.1: Forecasting the public finances describes how we work with departments to produce the different elements of our fiscal forecasts.

More Terry Gilliam style animations on the evening news explaining the latest fiscal forecast.

He was also struck, he said, by how difficult it was to get data on the performance and demographics of individual schools and to make fiscal forecasts about their needs.