and see re Devolution of tax and spending below.

Already very late it now looks as if they will not emerge until the summer due to a revaluation of Network Rail, a significant but one-off matter not needing to get in the way of the timely reporting of a particular period.  This is the picture: The “PGW guess” reflects trends and some references in the November Economic Review (OBR).

 That gives an  accumulation of debt over that period of £1,580bn.

 The accumulating cash "deficit" can be manipulated in any forecast year by advancing/retarding certain items. An instruction to 'prepare a forecast to give me the result I want'(echoes of Gordon Brown ?) is easily replaced, particularly with cash accounting, with 'prepare me a forecast reflecting the following key assumptions'. For example  the sale out of public ownership of RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) could appear to balance the books only in 2020. This doesn't cure the underlying unviability (accumulating net expenditure deficit). So why do our leaders keep on behaving and talking  as if they don't understand that ? Why try to fool us by talking only of "the economy", bountiful as they hope that will be? That avoids any sense of responsibility for the Administration, and Management of the public finances.

 In the light of the ever-rising "deficit" fuelled debt with interest rates bound to rise sometime, and whatever the debt/GDP ratio, one feels inclined to ask when do they forecast bankruptcy ie the moment when lenders say "sorry, no more". And why the  positioning of the OBR? Its skills are presumably present within the Treasury but  claims of political independence are surely  illusory.