After various academic roles, he became senior economic advisor to HM Treasury between 1970 and 1974. From 1979 to 1981 he was Special Adviser at the Treasury in Margaret Thatcher's government. Reflecting on his position during this time, Budd expressed concerns that the policies that were implemented to allegedly reduce inflation might, in fact, have had a hidden agenda. In a documentary interview, Budd postulated that the Thatcher's actual goal might have been to deliberately raise unemployment in order to reduce the strength of the working classes and re-created a reserve army of labour to allow capitalists to make high profits. During the 1980s he was a professor of economics and director of the Centre for Economic Forecasting at the London Business School. Other appointments have included group economic adviser, Barclays Bank, and membership of the Advisory Board for Research Councils. Between 1991 and 1997, he was chief economic adviser to the Treasury, and headed the government economic service. Among his activities as an economist, he is a governor of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research; a founder member of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group; an executive editor of World Economics and a member of the editorial advisory board of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy. He is also a senior adviser to Credit Suisse First Boston and a consultant to the G8 Group. In 2005, he was appointed to the board of the IG Group, a spread betting firm founded by Stuart Wheeler.
Public profile
Budd was a member of the Independent Review Panel on the Future Funding of the BBC, and chairman of the Gambling Review Body which produced the Gambling Review Report. In 2004 he was asked to investigate the circumstances surrounding the issue of a visa to the nanny of Kimberly Quinn, the lover of David Blunkett, the then Home Secretary; Budd's report concluded that there was no evidence that Mr Blunkett had personally interfered in the visa application, but that he was "able to establish a chain of events linking Mr Blunkett to the change in the decision on application." Blunkett resigned as home secretary after being told in advance of the report's findings. In May 2010 he came out of retirement to be the interim Chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility, set up by Chancellor of the ExchequerGeorge Osborne to assess the state of public finances and issue economic forecasts. He described this as "the most exciting challenge of my professional life". In July 2010 it was announced that he will not continue in the role after his initial 3-month contract expires. The Financial Times reported "His departure was expected and Budd had let it be known privately that he had never intended to serve as chairman of the OBR for anything other than a short period. His contract spanned the emergency Budget, leaving enough time thereafter to advise on the legislation needed to establish the OBR on a permanent basis."
