Last year’s Christmas honours list saw a few accountants in line for gongs and knighthoods, while unsurprisingly, the 966 names included no bankers whatsoever.
Top of the list is arguably Sandy Crombie, chief executive of Standard Life, although strictly speaking the now-Sir Sandy is an actuary rather than a formally qualified accountant. The news displeased some Scots, who still rile at the memory of the job cuts Crombie made in 2004 while awarding himself a company Porsche, but Standard Life proved to be a relatively stable survivor of the credit crunch, and Crombie has since been damning in his criticism of other financial bosses.
The second most prestigious honour in the accountancy arena goes to Nicholas MacPherson, permanent secretary at HM Treasury, who was awarded a KCB. MacPherson managed the budget and finance directorate, and was the director of welfare reform and personal private secretary to the chancellor of the exchequer, before filling the top slot at the Treasury where he earns a salary of £196,000. He holds no formal accountancy qualifications whatsoever, but hauled up before a parliamentary committee last May, he did promise to hire some. With the pound falling and a whole host of economic trouble on the horizon, some commentators have suggested that MacPherson’s award may be a little premature.
Further down the ladder, a number of chief executives have won themselves CBEs. David Dingle, head of cruise operator carnival, whose decision not to become an accountant was instrumental in his chosen career. Having received offers for four training contracts, Dingle opted instead for a life at sea.
Next on the list is Richard Fleck, chair of the Auditing Practices Board at the Financial Reporting Council. But despite being a founder member of the board, Fleck isn’t an accountant either: he trained as a solicitor with Herbert Smith in the seventies.
Other CEOs to scoop honours include Wynne Griffiths, late of Young’s Seafood; Robert Holden of London and Continental Railways; Priscilla Snowball of advertising agency Abbot Mead Vickers; Jonathan Adnams of brewers Adnams plc; Victoria Barnsley of Harper Collins; Hugh Taylor of Hilmar Hotel Management; Peter Hindle of Saint Gobain Distribution; and Peter Jones of Dragon’s Den fame. It’s not known at time of posting which, if any, are qualified accountants.
One new Commander of the Order of the British Empire who certainly is a qualified accountant is Professor Isobel Sharp, a former president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. She qualified as a CA in 1980 with Thomson McLintock. Her CBE was awarded for services to the accountancy profession. And the Scottish institute will no doubt have noticed that none of the accounting bodies south of the border have made the grade.
The honours list is also a way for the government to reward its loyal civil servants, and this year was no exception. Despite its troubles, numerous employees from HMRC were awarded honours, including a Neil Dossor, an administrative officer at the customer contact team. Relationships between taxpayers and the Revenue have always been strained, and the post of administrative officer is a junior role, so Dossor’s MBE must surely have come for services beyond the call of duty. Let’s hope so, as this would make a refreshing change from much of what we here about HMRC. The department has promised to get back to AccountingWeb on the subject at the time this story was posted.