Head of OBR says lack of budget details led to ‘work of fiction’ forecasts last year

Richard Hughes, the head of the Office for Budget Responsibility, criticised Jeremy Hunt’s approach to economic forecasting. Photograph: ParliamentTV

Forecasts on the outlook for the public finances last year were beyond “a work of fiction”, the head of the Treasury’s independent forecasting unit has suggested, after the government failed to provide details of its spending plans.

In an unusually scathing intervention, Richard Hughes, the head of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), criticised the support he gets from the government to help him forecast public spending.