Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, has stepped down following the findings of an urgent investigation by the watchdog into how he inadvertently published Rachel Reeves’s budget 40 minutes early.
Hughes wrote to the Chancellor and Labor chair of the Treasury select committee, Meg Hillier, on Monday, saying he “takes full responsibility for the shortcomings identified in this report”.
They wrote in the letter: “The OBR plays a vital role in UK fiscal policymaking, and it is vital that the Government, Parliament and the public continue to have confidence in its work. The inadvertent early dissemination of our economic and fiscal outlook (EFO) on 26 November was a technical but serious error.”
He added: “I also have to play my part in enabling the organization that I have led for the last five years to move quickly on from this regrettable incident.”
His resignation comes after the publication of a report on Monday that described the leak as “the worst failure in the OBR’s 15-year history” and strongly criticized the oversight processes in place to protect sensitive information.
The OBR’s error is one of several incidents that critics have said showed the budget was unusually disorganized.
The Conservatives are also calling for Reeves to resign because the briefing his advisers gave ahead of the budget announcement made it appear that the OBR’s forecasts were worse than they actually were.
Treasury ministers thanked Hughes for his service in the OBR, but failed to explicitly express regret at his resignation. Hillier said, “I commend his decision to take full responsibility for the incident and wish him all the best for the future.”
Hughes appointed Ciaran Martin, former chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, to assist in a rapid investigation into the incident under the supervision of Sarah Hogg and Dame Susan Rice, independent members of the OBR’s oversight board.
The report found that the OBR had uploaded its budget documents to a link which it believed was not accessible to the public. However, because the organization was using a special add-on to the WordPress publishing system, the link went live without OBR even being aware of it.
More damagingly, the report found that this was not the first time that the OBR had inadvertently published budget documents early. Its authors said: “It appears that the March 2025 EFO was accessed prematurely on one occasion, although there is no evidence of any activity occurring as a result of that access.”
James Murray, the chief secretary to the Treasury, told the Commons on Monday that he was concerned by the fact that someone had tried to access the documents multiple times before they went live.
“Unfortunately, this leads us to consider whether they continue to seek access to the EFO because they have been successful in previous financial programs,” he said.
“We do not have the answers to all these questions, but I can confirm that the Treasury will remain in contact with previous Chancellors to keep them informed of developments relating to past financial events.”
Hughes’ departure came after Reeves told the Guardian on Friday that he had confidence in Hughes.
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