Draft Charter for Budget Responsibility: Autumn 2025
The Charter for Budget Responsibility sets out the government’s approach to fiscal policy and management of the public finances.
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This update makes small, technical changes to the Charter for Budget Responsibility (the Charter) to deliver the policy announced at Budget 2025 relating to fiscal rules assessments, complementing the changes being made to the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011.
The Charter sets out the government’s fiscal and debt management policy and how this will operate. This includes the government’s fiscal objectives and its fiscal rules which will deliver these objectives (including the “fiscal mandate”). The Charter is required by the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011, as amended by the Budget Responsibility Act 2024.
At Budget 2025, the government strengthened the fiscal framework to deliver on its commitment to hold one major fiscal event per year, supporting the economy with greater policy certainty. Responding to recommendations made by the IMF, the government set out that it would legislate to ensure the OBR assesses performance against the fiscal rules once a year at the Budget.
Finance (No. 2) Bill 2025-26 includes an amendment to the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011, the underlying primary legislation that sets out the requirement for fiscal rules assessments.
The Charter already set out government’s commitment to hold one major fiscal event per year. This update to the Charter makes technical changes to deliver the November 2025 announcement on fiscal rules assessments.