Scottish Fiscal Commission


The Scottish Fiscal Commission is a non-ministerial office. It was established by the Scottish Parliament to provide independent forecasts of taxes and social security expenditure, and GDP forecasts, to help inform the government's budget and its scrutiny by parliament.
It was formally created in June 2014, but moved to become a statutory body following the Scottish Fiscal Commission Act 2016. The Commission is currently headed by Dame Susan Rice CBE, formerly the chair of Lloyds TSB Scotland plc.

Remit

The Scottish Fiscal Commission became established as a non-ministerial office on April 1 2017 and is structurally and operationally independent of the Scottish Government. Its Commissioners are directly accountable to the Scottish Parliament. It publishes two sets of five year forecasts a year in line with the Scottish budget process. It also publishes evaluations of its forecasts and working papers on related subjects. Its five year forecasts cover Scotland's:
It also assesses the reasonableness of Scottish Ministers' borrowing projections

Members

The Scottish Fiscal Commission currently comprises four members, who are nominated for appointment by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Economy. The nominations are considered by the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament, which then reports on the nominations to the Parliament as a whole. Parliament then decides whether or not to approve the nominations. The current members of the Scottish Fiscal Commission are: