{"id":606623,"date":"2025-12-02T04:11:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T04:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/606623\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T04:11:22","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T04:11:22","slug":"uk-fiscal-watchdog-chair-quits-over-mistakenly-published-budget-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/606623\/","title":{"rendered":"UK fiscal watchdog chair quits over mistakenly published Budget report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The chair of the U.K.&#8217;s economic watchdog stood down on Monday after the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/11\/26\/uk-government-borrowing-costs-fall-as-obr-forecasts-released-early.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">organization mistakenly released<\/a> its economic and fiscal forecasts ahead of the country&#8217;s Autumn Budget last week. <\/p>\n<p>The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) released its economic and fiscal forecasts on the budget&#8217;s measures about 40 minutes before Chancellor Rachel Reeves was due to begin delivering it last Wednesday, sending yields on British government debt see-sawing.<\/p>\n<p>Richard Hughes, who took up the role as chair of OBR in October 2020, tendered his resignation after markets closed on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter addressed to Reeves and Dame Meg Hillier, a lawmaker who chairs parliament&#8217;s Treasury Select Committee, Hughes said that the &#8220;inadvertent early dissemination of our Economic and fiscal outlook on 26 November was a technical but serious error.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The OBR has submitted a report to the Treasury and the Treasury Committee of the House of Commons detailing how and why the early release happened, and &#8220;identifies the further actions the Office will take to ensure that it never happens again,&#8221; the letter stated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is in the best interest of the OBR for me to resign&#8221; so the organization can &#8220;quickly move on from this regrettable incident,&#8221; Hughes wrote.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;By implementing the recommendations in this report, I am certain the OBR can quickly regain and restore the confidence and esteem that it has earned through 15 years of rigorous, independent, economic analysis,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Reeves responded by thanking Hughes &#8220;for his public service and for leading the Office for Budget Responsibility over the past five years and for his many years of public service.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This government is committed to protecting the independence of the OBR and the integrity of our fiscal framework and institutions,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The chair of the U.K.&#8217;s economic watchdog stood down on Monday after the organization mistakenly released its economic&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[4959,51,3085,4750,1700,2441,16727,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-606623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-breaking-news-markets","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-business-news","11":"tag-economic-events","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-markets","14":"tag-richard-hughes","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115648022859772395","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}