UK gov blames budget leak on misconfigured WordPress plugin, server

WordPress is the world's most popular content management system, but not so much with the UK government. The country's Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has blamed an inadvertent budget disclosure last week on misconfiguration of its WordPress website.

The snafu, first reported by Reuters, roiled UK markets, elicited scathing political criticism, and prompted the fiscal watchdog to apologize. The OBR promised a swift investigation, helmed by OBR's Oversight Board members Baroness Sarah Hogg and Dame Susan Rice. 

That report [PDF], prepared in consultation with Ciaran Martin, professor at Oxford University and former CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre, arrived on Monday.

It observes, "Technical commentary has, for many years, noted that WordPress can be onerous to configure and that mistakes are easily made in so doing."

The premature exposure of the OBR's November 2025 Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) followed from a misunderstanding of a ...