The ONS public sector finances bulletin of 21 October 2026 put borrowing in the financial year to September 2026 at £97.8 billion, £6.0 billion above the OBR forecast, which The Guardian reported the same day.
Hunch. In August alone the government borrowed £3.5bn more than the forecast, so the gap was still growing a month before this release.
The forecast market resolves on the ONS public sector finances bulletin published on 21 October 2026: YES if it says borrowing in the financial year to September 2026 was above the OBR forecast, and NO if it was equal to or below it. BBC News and The Guardian settle it if the ONS page cannot be read.
We looked for cases where the ONS published its last borrowing figures before a Budget or statement that came with a new OBR forecast. We found eight such releases from 2022 to 2026. In six of the seven that can be compared with the month before, borrowing stayed on the same side of the forecast. The one switch, in 2022, started from a gap of only £0.2bn.