Sir Alan…”not interested in doing a non-job”

Although a senior Treasury official suggested this morning that Sir Alan Budd quit the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) due to a growing conviction that his political independence was under threat, this is far from clear. The issue may well have been more one of City reputation and breadth of remit than independence.

The Slog remains doubtful about exactly how trustworthy this leak from the Treasury is. Others, for example, suggest that Sir Alan’s main problem was dealing with Treasury backbiting and obfuscation – a behaviour for which this ancient institution has a long and well-deserved reputation. Others still point to the knives being out from the Leftist media and ToryLab wreckers who are keen to make trouble on both voting reform and tax management.

Budd wouldn’t be worried about that. But he does seem to be a man of moods, having gone from being (according to the Guardian) ‘full of gloom about the UK’s growth prospects’ to hastily forecasting huge growth in private sector jobs – a bit of soothsaying that earned him a storm of ribaldry from several MPs and the TUC’s Chief Economist. But then, they would say that – and Alan Budd has never been one to worry about noses put out of joint. But only last month, Sir Alan described his Chairmanship of the OBR as “the most exciting challenge of my professional life”.

A usually reliable source has, however, suggested to The Slog that the Chancellor himself had been too vociferous in reassuring key opinion leaders that he and he alone would be in charge of budgetary management.

“I did hear that Sir Alan got wind of some rather dismissive remarks by George [Osborne] about precisely how powerful the OBR’s role would be” said a senior City insider within the last hour, “and he wasn’t interested in doing the job if it was just a bit of political window-dressing.”

This is true to form with Osborne, who has landed in trouble for mouthing off before – most notably in the Mandelson Yachting case. And if Sir Alan’s perhaps incautious job forecasts were at least partially the result of George looking urgently for spin, then the combination of factors may well have pushed Budd over the edge.

This is a serious credibility blow for the Tories’s OBR innovation – and possibly yet more evidence that, while Osborne is shaping up well as a competent Chancellor, his reputation for indiscretion continues to worry some observers.