‘Rachel from accounts' nickname gives us a bad rap, say accountants

Yahoo

14-02-2025

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has earned herself the nickname 'Rachel from accounts' following claims she overstated her economist experience on her CV.
But now accountants say the nickname is giving the profession a bad name after the Chancellor's controversial high-tax Budget triggered uproar and economic decline.
The Chancellor has never been a qualified accountant, but has claimed to have spent 10 years working at the Bank of England 'as an economist', when in reality she spent less than six years on Threadneedle Street.
Accountant Rachel Harris, who runs her own business, said: 'I feel called out. I am Rachel from accounts, so I feel like my full-time job is to actually be the Rachel from accounts and make sure that Rachel Reeves doesn't leave a permanent mark on all Rachel from the accounts.'
Ms Harris, who also creates online content about accountancy, said: 'I was initially really excited to have a female chancellor, I think it's a great step for women everywhere to explore careers in politics and especially maths.
'She has had a very difficult job and, as a business owner, I have been underwhelmed and a bit disappointed. Business owners everywhere are underwhelmed and female business owners everywhere are particularly underwhelmed.
'For small business owners everywhere, this being the first big, heavy Labour Budget, it's been really disappointing. But it is important to separate that from the fact that she's a woman, because I think any Labour government would have hit in the same way.'
After promising not to increase taxes for 'working people' ahead of the election, Ms Reeves hit businesses with a £25bn National Insurance rise, which critics said would lead to job cuts and cuts to pay.
One practitioner, who works at a top 10 accountancy firm, said the nickname was 'unfair' to accountants.
He said: 'An accountant would see past the 'girl maths' of the Budget being 'free' because you tax businesses instead of people.'
The Chancellor has always rejected allegations that she had embellished her CV. In January, when asked if the nickname upset her, she told Sky News that she had 'been called worse things ... in the end, people are going to judge me on the job that I'm doing now, that I'm doing as Chancellor of the Exchequer'.
She added: 'Some people don't want me to succeed. I spend my life proving people wrong, proving that I can do stuff, that I've been underestimated.'
Rebecca Beeby, the founder of accountancy firm Altho Dai, said: 'It's definitely misogynistic, the stereotype around accountants is women will have the more junior jobs and we have to push harder for our voices to be heard.
'As a profession, calling us 'accounts' is pretty old-fashioned, modern accountants and finance teams lead business decision-making and drive them forward, we're so much more than the bean counters we used to be seen as.'
In 2021, Ms Reeves said in a magazine interview that she had spent a decade working at the Bank of England. She reiterated the claims in a speech at the Labour Party business conference in 2024, saying: 'I spent the best part of a decade as an economist at the Bank of England.'
An online profile on career website LinkedIn said that Ms Reeves worked at the Bank of England as an economist between September 2000 and December 2006, across three divisions. She also spent almost a year studying for a Master's degree at the London School of Economics.
It also stated that she had worked at Halifax between December 2006 and December 2009.
But she actually began working at Halifax in the spring of 2006, the BBC has reported, meaning that the time spent at the Bank of England amounted to less than six years.
Ms Reeves's team has previously said that the dates on her LinkedIn profile were wrong, and that the Chancellor had not seen the profile before it was published.
In 2024, following criticism of the profile's description of her role at Halifax as an 'economist', it was updated to read 'Retail Banking'.
A spokesman for the Chancellor said: 'She worked as an economist at the Bank of England between 2000 and 2006, including over a year at the British Embassy in Washington working in the economics section, and then she worked at HBOS from 2006 to 2009.
'She's proud of the jobs she did and experience she gained before becoming a Member of Parliament.'
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