Overview

Governments around the world responded to COVID-19 with unprecedented fiscal policy interventions to protect lives and livelihoods. Estimates from the International Monetary Fund suggest that fiscal spending in response to COVID-19 has surpassed US$16 trillion. To achieve this level of public spending, many governments disregarded their existing fiscal rules in order to respond to the immediate crisis. In this session, experts from NIESR and ACCA will share their perspectives on how governments can best reset their fiscal frameworks to achieve sustainable public finances in the medium- to long-term.

Key learning outcomes

Attendees will be able to:

  • apply the principles of setting fiscal rules to the management of public money in their own organisations
  • consider the wider impacts of governments’ new fiscal rules on the sector and the implications for their own organisations
  • understand the current thinking on how to evolve public sector fiscal governance in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speakers

Alex Metcalfe leads on developing thought leadership for the public sector and represents ACCA at a variety of events and senior forums. He has worked across central, provincial and local government in the UK and Canadian civil service, including as a senior economist - specialising in tax policy - at the Ontario Ministry of Finance. He has published material across a breadth of public sector topics, including: infrastructure finance, employment law, fiscal policy, immigration and skills, and adult social care.

Alex is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), board member of the Confederation of Asian and Pacific Accountants’ (CAPA) public sector committee, and on the editorial board for the academic book series Public Service Accounting and Accountability.

Michael Taylor is ACCA’s chief economist and authors the quarterly Global Economic Conditions Survey report. His interests include macroeconomic policy, political economy and industrial strategy. His experience covers diverse areas, such as econometric analysis, construction of lead indicators and policy formulation.  Michael has worked in numerous roles as an economist, including as an adviser to the UK government, at City institutions and economic consultancies, at a policy think tank and at the Institute of Directors, where he was Chief Economist. He holds a Master’s degree in economics from the London School of Economics.  

Prof. Jagjit S. Chadha OBE Jagjit is Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR). Previously he was Professor of Economics at the University of Kent and at Cambridge and Professor of Economics at the University of St Andrews and Fellow at Clare College, Cambridge. He has worked at the Bank of England on Monetary Policy, as Chief Quantitative Economist at BNP Paribas, and has served as Chair of the Money, Macro, Finance Study Group. He has acted as Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Treasury Committee and academic adviser to both the Bank of England and HM Treasury, and to many central banks, as well as the Bank for International Settlements. 

In the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours he was awarded an OBE for his services to Economics and Economic Policy.