As if the Labour lot hadn’t leaked enough ahead of Rachel Reeves’s big Budget announcement, a slip-up at the OBR meant that the report the Chancellor was set to unveil became readily available, er, before she had made her speech. The OBR was quick to apologise over the leak and confirmed it had launched a probe into the whole palaver. And now the qunago’s chairman, Richard Hughes, has offered to resign over the unprecedented release. Crikey!
Speaking at a Resolution Foundation event this morning, OBR head Richard Hughes explained:
It wasn’t published on our website but there was a link that somebody managed to find. And that made it accessible, and then it was then disseminated. As soon as it was discovered, we took action to take it down. We take Budget security incredibly seriously, which is why this investigation is already under way and will report very swiftly by early next week. Personally, I serve day-to-day subject to the confidence of the Chancellor and the Treasury committee. If they both conclude, in light of that investigation, they no longer have confidence in me then of course I will resign, which is what you do when you’re the chair of something called the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Hughes also told the Beeb’s Today programme that he takes full responsibility for the mistake and has written to Reeves to apologise that the organisation ‘let people down’. Ciaran Martin, former chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, will assist the OBR in its investigation. For her part, the Chancellor fumed: ‘I do have confidence in Richard and the OBR, they do important work. But what happened yesterday, it did let me down and it shouldn’t have happened and it must never happen again.’
In a sliver of good news for the OBR, while shadow chancellor Mel Stride claimed on Wednesday that the breach may constitute a criminal act, legal experts have dismissed this suggestion. Criminal defence lawyer Craig MacKenzie of Forbes Solicitors remarked:
While the premature publication of the OBR’s economic and fiscal outlook is undoubtedly serious from a market and political perspective, it is unlikely to constitute a criminal offence under existing UK law. The Official Secrets Act 1989 is largely limited to matters of national security, defence or international relations. A fiscal forecast, even if market-sensitive, doesn’t appear to fall within those categories.
There is a theoretical argument around ‘misconduct in public office’, a common law offence requiring wilful neglect or abuse of public duty, but the threshold for prosecution is very high, and past cases tend to involve corruption, personal gain or gross abuse of sensitive information. This situation, while serious, looks more like a procedural failure than a criminal act.
How interesting. But while this judgement may provide some small relief to Hughes, it seems likely heads will roll…
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