OBR Chief Resigns Over Accidental Leak Of Budget

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s chief has resigned after the financial watchdog accidentally released its response to Rachel Reeves’s Budget.

Richard Hughes quit as its chairman on Monday, less than a week after the independent financial watchdog upended parliamentary procedure by unintentionally releasing its response to the Budget before the chancellor had even presented it to parliament.

It came after a damning report revealed mistakes at the very top of the organisation were responsible for the leak.

In a latter to Meg Hillier, chair of the Treasury Select Committee, Hughes admitted the OBR had made “a serious error”, but that the OBR was already taking steps to make sure it cannot happen again.

He said: “By implementing the recommendations in this report, I am certain the OBR can quickly regain and restore the confidence and esteem that it has earned through 15 years of rigorous, independent, economic analysis.

“I also need to play my part in enabling the organisation that I have loved leading for the past five years to quickly move on from this regrettable incident.

“I have, therefore, decided it is in the best interest of the OBR for me to resign as its chair and take full responsibility to the shortcomings identified in the report.”

Hughes’s resignation was announced as Treasury minister James Murray was being quizzed in the Commons about the OBR leak as well as claims Reeves misled the public before the Budget about the state of the public finances.

Murray said: “I understand events are moving quickly, and I understand from messages passed to me, there has been an event, the chair of the OBR has resigned, is what I understand from messages passed to me.”

He added: “May I put on record on behalf of the government, our thanks to Richard Hughes for his dedication to public service.”

The minister had earlier told MPs that the accidental release of the OBR’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook report was a “fundamental breach” of the watchdog’s responsibility.

The investigation into how the leak was carried out by Professor Ciaran Martin, former head of the National Cyber Security Centre.

He found that the “ultimate responsibility” for the mistake rests with the leadership of the OBR.

The report found the use of a pre-publication facility online “created a potential vulnerability if not configured properly”.

It added that phase of the publication of the report, in the minutes before the Chancellor stood up to deliver her Budget speech, “had not received the same amount of attention by the OBR” as communications between the watchdog and the Treasury in the long run-up to the Budget.