OBR chief resigns after budget leak investigation

London - The chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) – a government watchdog, Richard Hughes, has resigned after an investigation into the leak of last week's budget criticised the watchdog's leadership.

In a letter to Ms Reeves and the chairwoman of the Commons Treasury Committee Dame Meg Hillier, Mr  Hughes said he was quitting to allow the OBR to "quickly move on from this regrettable incident".

He said he took "full responsibility" for "the shortcomings identified in the report".

Mr Hughes 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."

An investigation ordered by the independent fiscal forecaster soon after the budget called the leak "the worst failure in the 15-year history of the OBR" and strongly criticised the watchdog's processes for protecting sensitive information.

The probe found there was "nothing to suggest" the premature access was the result of "hostile cyber activity by foreign actors or cyber criminals, or of connivance by anyone working for the OBR".

"Nor was it simply a matter of pressing the publication button on a locally managed website too early," the report stated.

It concluded that "configuration errors" led to "a failure to ensure the protections which hide documents from public view immediately before publication were in place".

"The ultimate responsibility for the circumstances in which this vulnerability occurred and was then exposed rests, over the years, with the leadership of the OBR," the investigation said.

The OBR's official forecast, which revealed the contents of the record-breaking tax rise budget, was accessed at 11.35am last Wednesday, about an hour before the chancellor stood up to deliver it.

Hughes took up the job during the Covid pandemic in October 2020, before inflation began to rapidly rise in 2021.

Hughes’s five-year term was set to end in October this year, but in May, Chancellor Rachel had nominated him for a second five-year-term.