Richard Hughes has resigned as chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) after an error on Budget day led to a key OBR document being published early.
In a resignation letter Mr Hughes said he took “full responsibility” for the shortcomings identified in the OBR’s internal investigation. The watchdog described the incident as the worst failure in its 15-year history. The premature release effectively confirmed measures — including a three-year freeze on income tax and National Insurance thresholds — before the chancellor set them out, undermining the planned Budget announcement.
The OBR, which is independent of government but works closely with the Treasury, concluded the release was inadvertent but said the incident had “inflicted heavy damage on the OBR’s reputation” and been “seriously disruptive” to the chancellor. The report found that ultimate responsibility for the circumstances allowing early access lay with OBR leadership.
Mr Hughes told the chancellor and Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Treasury Select Committee, that he believed the OBR could “quickly regain and restore the confidence and esteem” it had earned if the organisation implemented the report’s recommendations. He said stepping down would help the organisation “quickly move on from this regrettable incident” and that resigning was in the OBR’s best interest.
He had been due to appear before the Treasury Select Committee to answer questions about the Budget and OBR forecasts; Dame Meg confirmed he would no longer attend. Chancellor Rachel Reeves thanked Mr Hughes for his public service and for leading the OBR over the past five years.
Political reactions were sharply divided. Sir Keir Starmer defended the chancellor and denied she had misled the public, noting the government had committed to measures including cutting borrowing and would therefore need to raise revenue. The OBR had earlier informed the Treasury that a productivity downgrade would be offset by higher incomes, increasing tax receipts. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch criticised the chancellor, saying someone had resigned because of the Budget chaos but “it isn’t Rachel Reeves,” adding the chancellor appeared to be using the OBR chair as a “human shield.” Paul Johnson, former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said he was not surprised by the resignation, calling the error “a really bad mistake” but describing Mr Hughes as a “very effective and very robust” leader.
Mr Hughes had recently started a second five-year term after being renominated by the chancellor in May. He first became OBR chair in October 2020 during the Covid pandemic. Before that he was director of fiscal policy at the Treasury and spent eight years as division chief in the IMF’s fiscal affairs department.
The OBR brought in Ciaran Martin, former chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, to investigate how forecasts were accessed early. His inquiry found no evidence of foreign interference, cyber-criminal activity or internal collusion. Key findings included that the analysis was available at a hidden URL between 11:30 and 12:08 on Budget morning, it was accessed 43 times from 32 devices, and there was an attempted access at 05:16.
Martin’s report blamed a pre-existing weakness in the OBR’s publication system. The software used to publish to the website was judged more suitable for a small or medium-sized company than for releasing market-sensitive data. Two errors in the WordPress setup bypassed intended safeguards: a plug-in unintentionally removed the need to log in to access documents scheduled for future publication, and the directory used for the file allowed anyone to download it directly. The OBR obtained an exemption in 2013 from using a more secure government publishing platform to preserve its operational independence; for other IT services, such as secure email, the OBR uses Treasury systems.
A Treasury spokesperson thanked the OBR for its report and said a minister would respond “in due course.”