LONDON, Dec 1 (Reuters) – The head of Britain’s fiscal watchdog submitted his resignation on Monday after his agency last week inadvertently released the key details of finance minister Rachel Reeves’ annual tax-and-spending budget statement ahead of time.
Richard Hughes said he wanted to help the Office for Budget Responsibility to recover quickly from the lapse which an investigation linked to IT weaknesses and leadership failures.
“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,” he said in a letter to Reeves.
Hughes began his first five-year term as chair of the independent public body in 2020 before Reeves backed him for a second term in May. His departure follows a period of strained relations between Reeves and the OBR.
The agency said earlier on Monday that its inadvertent early publication of its assessment of Reeves’ budget last Wednesday was due to pre-existing IT failings that had not been spotted by the OBR’s leadership.
It said an investigation into the causes of the early release, first reported by Reuters, had found the weakness was likely to have pre-dated the budget and said it would improve its systems to prevent a recurrence.
The OBR made its Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) report accessible on its website just under an hour before Reeves started to deliver her annual budget in parliament at 1234 GMT.
The EFO set out the key announcements on taxes, growth and individual policy changes, leading to mockery and anger among some lawmakers in parliament.
“We are in no doubt that this failure to protect information prior to publication has inflicted heavy damage on the OBR’s reputation,” two non-executive directors of the OBR said in a foreword to Monday’s publication of the investigation’s results.
“It is the worst failure in the 15-year history of the OBR,” they said.
(Reporting by Muvija M, Sam Tabahriti and Sarah Young; Writing by William Schomberg and Kate Holton; Editing by Rachel Armstrong and Catherine Evans)
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