The OBR chair quits after an investigation into how the budget draft was sent out early

Published Date: 2 December 2025

The OBR chair quits after an investigation into how the budget draft was sent out early first image

Richard Hughes, the head of the Office for Budget Responsibility, quit after an internal investigation found that the watchdog had made one of the biggest mistakes in its history when it accidentally put the government's secret budget forecasts online before the Chancellor's announcement.

The investigation found that a technical problem with the OBR's publication system made the whole economic outlook, including growth forecasts, tax assumptions, and budgetary estimates, public about an hour before Rachel Reeves's Budget presentation.The study says that this was the worst security breach since the OBR was set up in 2010.

Hughes said he had to leave to restore faith in the body's independence and integrity, and he took "full responsibility" for the mistake. In a letter to the Chancellor and the Treasury Committee, he said that the early release had hurt people's faith in the budgeting process and caused unnecessary problems on a day when there were important financial changes.The Treasury confirmed that he had left and said that the search for a new person to take his place would begin right away.

The OBR chair quits after an investigation into how the budget draft was sent out early second image

A WordPress feature that wasn't set up right caused the breach. This made the paper available to people outside of OBR through a live URL that OBR authorities thought was private.An investigation showed that the same security hole had led to an earlier, undetected breach in March, which raised more questions about the watchdog's own systems' reliability.

Some people say that the leak made the government's plans for taxes and spending even less clear, which made political tensions worse before Reeves's first budget. Opposition parties used the crisis to compare Hughes's resignation to Reeves's refusal to step down after being accused of lying about the state of public finances, a charge the government denies.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer backed the Chancellor, saying that the OBR's mistake was "serious" but not related to government duty. He stressed that fixing the structural problems with the fiscal watchdog is now a top priority.Hughes was supposed to talk to MPs about the budget forecasts, but he won't be going. The OBR board has said that it will take steps right away to stop the problem from happening again.These steps include stricter publication protections and changes to how data is handled.