Alan Budd

Sir Alan Budd GBE
Sir Alan Budd in 2008.
Chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility
In office May 2010 – 4 October 2010
Deputy	صغ
Preceded by	office established
Succeeded by	Robert Chote
Personal details
Born	16 November 1937 London, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Alma mater	London School of Economics University of Oxford University of Cambridge

Sir Alan Peter Budd GBE (born 16 November 1937) is a prominent British economist, who was a founding member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in 1997.

He left the MPC in May 1999, and between August 1999 and 2008 was Provost of The Queen's College, Oxford.

He was temporarily head of Her Majesty's Government's Office for Budget Responsibility during 2010.^[1]

Education

Budd went to Oundle School, a public school in Cambridgeshire, and then studied at the London School of Economics where he received a B.Sc. degree in economics. He subsequently went to the University of Oxford were he received an MA degree and a D.Phil. degree and to the University of Cambridge where he obtained a Ph.D. degree.^[2]

His academic posts have included the University of Southampton, Carnegie-Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh (Ford foundation visiting professor), and the University of New South Wales (Reserve Bank of Australia visiting professor).

Economic positions

After various academic roles, he became senior economic advisor to HM Treasury between 1970 and 1974. From 1979 to 1981 he was Special Adviser at the Treasury in Margaret Thatcher's government. Reflecting on his position during this time, Budd expressed concerns that the policies that were implemented to allegedly reduce inflation might, in fact, have had a hidden agenda. In a documentary interview, Budd postulated that the Thatcher's actual goal might have been to deliberately raise unemployment in order to reduce the strength of the working classes and re-created a reserve army of labour to allow capitalists to make high profits. ^[3]

During the 1980s he was professor of economics and director of the Centre for Economic Forecasting at the London Business School. Other appointments have included group economic adviser, Barclays Bank (1989–91), and membership of the Advisory Board for Research Councils (1990–91).

Between 1991 and 1997, he was chief economic adviser to the Treasury, and headed the government economic service.

Among his activities as an economist, he is a governor of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research; a founder member of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group; an executive editor of World Economics and a member of the editorial advisory board of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy. He is also a senior adviser to Credit Suisse First Boston and a consultant to the G8 Group. In 2005, he was appointed to the board of the IG Group, a spread betting firm founded by Stuart Wheeler.^[4]

Public profile

Budd was a member of the Independent Review Panel on the Future Funding of the BBC (1999), and chairman of the Gambling Review Body which produced the Gambling Review Report (2001). In 2004 he was asked to investigate the circumstances surrounding the issue of a visa to the nanny of Kimberly Quinn, the lover of David Blunkett, the then Home Secretary; Budd's report concluded that there was no evidence that Mr Blunkett had personally interfered in the visa application, but that he was "able to establish a chain of events linking Mr Blunkett to the change in the decision on [the] application." Blunkett resigned as home secretary after being told in advance of the report's findings.

In May 2010 he came out of retirement to be the interim Chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility, set up by Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne to assess the state of public finances and issue economic forecasts.^[5] He described this as "the most exciting challenge of my professional life". In July 2010 it was announced that he will not continue in the role after his initial 3-month contract expires.^[6][1] The Financial Times reported "His departure was expected and Budd had let it be known privately that he had never intended to serve as chairman of the OBR for anything other than a short period. His contract spanned the emergency Budget, leaving enough time thereafter to advise on the legislation needed to establish the OBR on a permanent basis."^[7]

Honours

Budd was knighted in the 1997 New Year Honours. Besides Provost (1999-2008), he is an Honorary Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford since 2008. He was awarded an Honorary DSc degree by the University of Salford in 2008.^[8] He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to economic policy and the Office for Budget Responsibility.^[9][10]

References

1. Inman, Phillip (6 July 2010). "Alan Budd quits as government spending watchdog". The Guardian. London.
2. "Oxford University Gazette, 4 October 2007: University Acts". Ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2015-08-24.
3. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2010/03/thatcher-economic-budd-dispatches
4. Stevenson, Rachel (14 April 2005). "Sir Alan Budd to join Tory donor's spread betting firm". The Independent. London.
5. Speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon George Osborne MP, on the OBR and spending announcements, HM Treasury, 17 May 2010, archived from the original on 24 May 2010
6. Economics. "Sir Alan Budd to leave the Office for Budget Responsibility". Telegraph. Retrieved 2015-08-24.
7. Archived 9 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine.
8. "Honorary Graduates 1967 - 2014" (PDF). Queens.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2015-08-24.
9. Cabinet Office (28 December 2012). "New Year Honours: New Year 2013 Honours List – Higher Awards" (PDF). Cabinet Office. Retrieved 29 December 2012.
10. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 60367. p. 6. 29 December 2012.

External links

• BBC News profile