The Budget watchdog has said its accidental release of key details of Rachel Reeves’s speech was not a case of “intentional leakage” but IT weaknesses.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said last week’s blunder was the “worst failure” in the organisation’s 15-year history and it must take “immediate steps to change completely” how it publishes sensitive forecasts. It launched an investigation with expert input from Professor Ciaran Martin, former head of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), after official forecasts were uploaded to its website almost an hour early.
In a foreword to its internal probe, it said: “It is the worst failure in the 15-year history of the OBR. It was seriously disruptive to the Chancellor, who had every right to expect that the EFO would not be publicly available until she sat down at the end of her Budget speech, when it should, as is usual, have been published alongside the Treasury’s explanatory Red Book.
“The Chair of the OBR, Richard Hughes, has rightly expressed his profound apologies.”
A Treasury spokesperson said: “We thank the Office for Budget Responsibility for their report. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury will respond in due course.”
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