UK OBR chief Richard Hughes quits after Budget published early

(Sharecast News) - The head of Britain's independent economic forecaster has quit after an emergency inquiry into the early release of last week's Budget statement, which also revealed that a similar security breach had occurred earlier this year.

Richard Hughes, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), resigned on Monday afternoon. He had commissioned former National Cyber Security Centre boss Ciaran Martin to help with a swift investigation into the embarrassing incident.

Martin's probe was overseen by the independent members of the OBR's oversight board, Sarah Hogg and Dame Susan Rice.

Finance Minister Rachel Reeves, already fending off criticism for leaking large parts of her Budget in the weeks before her statement to parliament last Wednesday, had given Hughes her backing.

Hughes wrote to the chancellor and to Meg Hillier, the chair of the cross-party Treasury select committee, last week to apologise after the OBR uploaded its documents setting out the details of the budget 40 minutes before Reeves began to speak.

In a letter to Reeves and Hillier on Monday, Hughes said: "I 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."

Martin's report found that the early publication was not intentional, but highlighted weaknesses in the structure of the OBR's internet infrastructure that allowed the pre-loaded documents to be accessed by those who knew what web addressed to enter.

The OBR also admitted that its previous report, published in March alongside the spring statement, had been accessed "prematurely" - five minutes into Reeves's speech after being uploaded online before it was supposed to be, at the end of the her statement.

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com