THE PROBLEM WITH PUTTING THE OBR ON A PEDESTAL IS THAT IT IS AN ECONOMIC FORECASTER, AND ALL FORECASTS ARE GOING TO BE WRONG

Richard Hughes and Robert Chote, his predecessor as the agency’s boss, are well aware of this – they analyse the institution’s performance each year to see where it went wrong and what it can learn.

But they are not the only forecasters in the world of macroeconomics.

So who else could the Chancellor consult when working out how much to tax and spend?

One obvious option is the Bank of England. Its Monetary Policy Report, published quarterly, includes economic projections.

While it is geared towards its main job of setting interest rates, rather than the public finances, the GDP and inflation forecasts are still useful for the Government.

It might not want to listen this time around, however – the Bank this year has been extremely gloomy, predicting the economy is set to fall into its longest ever recession.

There are plenty of private sector forecasters too, whose predictions are publicly available and thus open to scrutiny.

They are a diverse bunch, as shown by the compilation of independent numbers published by the Treasury each month.

In the final months of 2020, for instance, projections for 2021’s GDP growth ranged from 1.3pc to 7.5pc as analysts at banks and consultancies read the runes for the recovery from Covid.

In the end – after more lockdowns and reopenings and several revisions of the official data – the economy grew by 7.5pc. JP Morgan was the only forecaster in the list to be spot on.

Conveniently, Jeremy Hunt has appointed one of the investment bank’s economists, Karen Ward, to his new Economic Advisory Council.

It looks like he has done his homework on finding alternative sources of advice.