Budget documents accessed thousands of times before release
The budget was accessed nearly 25,000 times before its formal release, according to an official report into the leak, raising questions over the data handling practices of the UK’s fiscal watchdog.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said it had identified at least 24,701 successful downloads of the document, compared to the 43 spotted in the first review.
The first successful request to the site was made at 11:35 on 26th November. The IP address which first accessed the site had made 32 unsuccessful attempts over the course of the morning.
Reuters started publishing details of the budget at 11:41 with the full documents then being shared widely on social media.
The accidental publication of the document was a huge embarrassment for the Office for Budget Responsibility, forcing the resignation of Richard Hughes as chair. It revealed all of the details of the government’s last budget before the Chancellor had delivered it.
The NCSC also found that the spring statement in March had been accessed 16 times rather than just the one which the initial review had identified.
The report agreed that the documents had been published due a “misconfiguration of the way in which WordPress was implemented,” rather than due to hostile cyber activity or someone pressing publish too early.
The NCSC recommended that all market sensitive publications should be published on GOV.UK in future.
The Treasury also conducted a review into the handling of market sensitive information after a leak to the Financial Times in the run-up to the budget revealed that ministers had dropped a proposal to hike the levy by 2p.
Although the department was unable to identify the source of the leak, it announced a series of internal changes so that fewer people will have access to market sensitive information.
Budget forecast timetable
The Treasury also announced that the OBR will not publish the full forecast timetable ahead of the 2026 Spring Statement.
In the run-up to the budget, the OBR creates a number of ‘pre-measures’ forecasts, which assess the health of the economy without the impact of the government’s policies. This then determines how much fiscal space the Chancellor has to work with.
These forecasts are prepared in accordance with a pre-published timetable, giving commentators a chance to speculate on how they may have changed given wider macroeconomic developments over the period.
“The nature of the OBR’s pre-measures forecast, and how it may change between each of the pre-measures forecast rounds, is often the subject of considerable debate and speculation by economic commentators and the media,” the Treasury said.
“The OBR will consider, ahead of Budget 2026, whether the current approach to publishing the timetable continues to contribute to transparency and stability.”