Sir Alan Budd was a patron of PBE. He was an economist whose last appointment was as Chairman of the Interim Office for Budget Responsibility. Prior to this, he was a founding member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee as he moved to the Bank from the Treasury where he was Chief Economic Adviser. He had previously been Group Economic Adviser to Barclays Bank. Alan held the position of Provost of Queen’s College, Oxford from 1999 to 2008. He was a Professor of Economics at the London Business School and Director of the Centre for Economic Forecasting and held Visiting Chairs at the University of New South Wales and Carnegie-Mellon University. He graduated from the LSE and had a PhD from Cambridge University, and in 1997 he received a knighthood and was made GBE in the New Year’s Honours.