OBR says inadvertent budget leak is ‘worst failure’ in its 15-year history

Investigation finds organisation’s leadership over many years was to blame for error, and similar breach happened earlier this year

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Britain’s budget watchdog has said the early leak of its budget documents before Rachel Reeves made her speech was the “worst failure” in its 15-year history as it emerged a similar breach had occurred earlier this year.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said an investigation had found that the leadership of the organisation, over many years, was to blame for the early release of its Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) document online nearly an hour before Reeves’s address last Wednesday.

After an investigation headed by the OBR’s chief of staff, Laura Gardiner, and Ciaran Martin, the former head of the National Cyber Security Centre, the report said a weakness in its procedures was likely to have been pre-existing, and it would audit and improve its systems.