What we forecast
Five areas, one method. Anything may enter an area if it can be forecast in advance and scored on a fixed date against a number somebody official has already published.
Public finances
Budgets, headroom and financial distress in public bodies, forecast ahead of the official number and scored on release.
nothing registered yet
Public services
Capacity and demand in the systems that run out first, forecast at dated horizons against the official path.
Regulated industries
Resilience and performance of regulated companies, published as a pre-registered screen and scored on what happens.
nothing registered yet
Prices and the economy
National series forecast ahead of the official statistics and the market consensus, marked on release.
nothing registered yet
Demographics
Population, households and cohorts, at national and town level, forecast decades out with the backtest published alongside.
nothing registered yet
How it works
Three steps, in this order, every time. The order is the whole point: once a forecast is registered, there is nowhere left to hide.
First
Pick a question with a date on it
Questions where a decision turns on a number that does not exist yet, and where an official body has already put its own number on the record.
Then
Register it before the outcome
The claim, the benchmark and its value on the day, the data used, the dates it will be marked and the rule it will be scored by — committed to a public repository while the answer is still unknown.
Afterwards
Publish the mark either way
Scored on the fixed date against the number it set out to beat. Hits and misses alike. Nothing is edited and nothing is quietly dropped.
The standard
A forecast you cannot check is an opinion
- The benchmark is named, with its vintage, before the forecast is made
- The marking dates are fixed in advance, so a miss cannot become a longer horizon
- Every claim on this site links to a registered entry, or it is not made
What has been registered so far, and how each line stands, is on the ledger. The rules it runs on are set out in the method, and the written work is in papers.