The former permanent secretary at the Treasury has been criticised after being given the green light to become chairman of a bank accused of "exploiting" offshore finance services.
Sir Nicholas Macpherson, who announced his departure from the Treasury in April this year, is set to take up a two-day-per-week role as chairman for C Hoare & Co – a bank for wealthy individuals.
According to its website, the family-run bank – which is the oldest in the UK and the fourth oldest in the world – offers clients help netting “the best after-tax returns” as part of its offshore investment management wing.
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It also offers “inheritance tax and capital gains tax planning” with an approach “heavily geared towards managing tax risk”. There is no suggestion the bank engages in any practice which is outside the law.
Labour MP and former Public Accounts Committee chair Margaret Hodge criticised the appointment, telling CSW's sister site PoliticsHome: “I am truly shocked that Nicholas Macpherson, who always displayed great integrity when he gave evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, has taken up a role in a bank that exploits offshore trusts to enable rich people to avoid paying tax."
She added: "I do not understand how he can do it.”
Tax campaigner Richard Murphy meanwhile said Macpherson's appointment was "extraordinary".
“As former head of the Treasury he should be doing all he can to uphold the standards that we are meant to be promoting in the international arena," he told PoliticsHome. "It doesn’t appear that that is now his goal.”
Macpherson new role was cleared by the Government's Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), which oversees the movements into employment of current or former officials and ministers.
The committee noted that it saw no conflict of interest in Sir Nicholas taking the job, including no “reasonable perception of reward with the move” for any party. It is unclear if the role is paid.
Although it would have no power to block him anyway, Acoba said he could take up the job subject to a usual set of restrictions.
Those include that he “should not become personally involved in lobbying” the Government or making use of public sector contacts for the bank for two years from his last day at the civil service.
Sir Nicholas replaces former top civil servant Lord Wilson in the chairmanship of the bank, and is due to start his new job in October.
He was permanent secretary to three chancellors including Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling. He managed the Treasury throughout the 2008 financial crash.
On its website C Hoare & Co advertises services to ensure client portfolios are “efficiently structured” and offers help to those not domiciled in the UK to hold “at least some of your assets offshore”. Both C Hoare & Co and the Treasury declined to comment. Macpherson could not be reached by PoliticsHome.