Richard Hughes

Richard Hughesis Chairman at Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

Career

Richard Hughes began his five-year term as Chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility in October 2020.

He started his career at HM Treasury in 2000 where he worked on a range of domestic and international macroeconomic issues and led the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review. Following a brief secondment to the French Ministry of Finance in 2007, he joined the International Monetary Fund in 2008 where he headed the Fiscal Affairs Department’s Public Finance Division and worked on fiscal reform in a range of advanced, emerging, and developing countries.

Richard returned to HM Treasury between 2016 and 2019 as Director of Fiscal Policy where he oversaw the government’s fiscal strategy, debt management, and treasury operations and served as Acting Chief Economist.

In the year leading up to his appointment, Richard as a Research Associate at the Resolution Foundation where he published papers on fiscal rules, public investment, and the economic and fiscal implications of coronavirus. He also served as Senior Counsellor to the Haut Conseil des Finances Publiques (High Council on Public Finance) in France, Lecturer at Sciences Po in Paris, Visiting Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford.

Education

He was educated at Harvard University and the University of Oxford.