UK fiscal watchdog chair quits over mistakenly published Budget report

The head of Britain’s economic watchdog resigned from his post on Monday after the body mistakenly published economic and fiscal forecasts ahead of the country’s Autumn Budget last week.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) published its economic and fiscal forecasts for budget measures around 40 minutes before Chancellor Rachel Reeves was set to announce last Wednesday, reporting the returns on the British government’s debt cuts.
Richard Hughes, who took over as OBR chairman in October 2020, tendered his resignation on Monday.
In a letter addressed to Reeves and Dame Meg Hillier, the MP who chairs the parliament’s Treasury Select Committee, Hughes said the “inadvertently premature publication of our economic and fiscal outlook on 26 November was a technical but serious error.”
The letter said the OBR had submitted a report to the Treasury and the House of Commons Treasury Committee detailing how and why the early release occurred and had “identified further actions the Office will take to ensure this never happens again”.
“It is in the OBR’s interest that I resign,” Hughes wrote, so that the organization “can quickly recover from this regrettable episode.”
“I am confident that by implementing the recommendations in this report, the OBR can quickly regain and restore the trust and credibility it has earned through 15 years of rigorous, independent economic analysis,” he added.
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