Briefing

The Chancellor made his Pre-Budget statement on Thursday 2nd December. IFS held a briefing on the following day, Friday 3rd December.

Slides from the briefing can be downloaded here:

• The public finances
• Uncertainty in the forecasts
• Personal tax and benefit reforms
• The 10-year strategy for childcare

Press releases

IFS put out two press releases, covering the public finances and the government's announcements on childcare strategy.

Useful publications

Green Budget 2004

The IFS Green Budget 2004 examines the Chancellor's options for the Budget. Areas covered include the public finances and spending plans, the case for converging income tax with National Insurance, a discussion of distributional analysis, child poverty, company taxation, the taxation of housing and how to measure public sector performance.

Public finances

Since October 2002 IFS has produced monthly bulletins analysing the government's public finance figures. A recent working paper, Updating the UK's code for fiscal stability, looks at what improvements might be made to the code in the light of recent experiences.

In a briefing note in the summer 2004, we laid out the challenges facing the Chancellor in his spending review; earlier in the year we also analysed the Conservative party's spending proposals.

In an article for the Independent on Sunday, Robert Chote sums up the current situation with the public finances; this is revisited in a piece for BBC online. Carl Emmerson and Chris Frayne look at the fiscal rules in an article for Whitehall and Westminster World and in an article for Public Finance Magazine.

Support for children

Recent work, funded by the Joseph Rowntree foundation, examines the effects this government's policies to support children have had on the incentives for parents to work.

Ongoing work by IFS analyses the progress the government has made towards its goal to abolish child poverty.

An article by Mike Brewer on the FT's PBR wish list summarises the government's progress on the child poverty reduction.

Productivity and business

A new briefing note looks at how the government could move forward in supporting innovation and technology transfer. Another recent piece of work, undertaken with funding from the Advanced Institute of Management, considers recent trends in specialisation, outsourcing and offshoring of business services.

Fiscal Facts

Our briefing notes, A survey of the UK tax system (Briefing Note 9, updated November 2004), A survey of the UK benefit system (Briefing Note 13, updated November 2004) and the new A survey of public spending in the UK (Briefing Note 43, September 2004) include changes implemented after the 2004 Budget. Another briefing note, The government's fiscal rules, describes the government's two fiscal rules and discusses the uncertainty inherent in forecasting the public finances.