The UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has come under fire after allegedly exaggerating the amount of time she spent working at the Bank of England.

The Labour MP has frequently referenced her decade at the central bank as proof of her trustworthiness with the nation’s finances. But her LinkedIn account shows she was employed from September 2000 to December 2006. Including a year of studying, this adds up to roughly five and a half years at the bank.

BBC News has further established that Reeves left the bank by March 2006 to work for Halifax Bank of Scotland in West Yorkshire, nine months earlier than her LinkedIn suggests.

A spokesperson for Reeves has claimed the inaccuracies are the result of an administrative error that the chancellor was unaware of. 

Reeves’ profile was updated yesterday to indicate that she left the Bank of England in March, not December.

In a previous controversy over her CV last year, Reeves changed her job title for her time at Halifax to “retail banking”, following accusations from opposition MPs that her claims of working as an economist were inaccurate.

The chancellor’s online CV also gives seemingly inaccurate information regarding her time at Halifax, claiming she left in December 2009 when she actually left in May.

The retail bank was undergoing restructuring at the time and a spokesperson for Reeves stated she had taken a voluntary redundancy.

Reeves also faces accusations that she failed to disclose that she was the subject of a probe into her use of expenses during her time at Halifax.

A spokesperson said the chancellor had no knowledge of the investigation, always complied with expenses rules, and left the bank on good terms.

A November 2023 study from ResumeLab found that 70% of British workers have lied on their resumes, with 37% admitting they have done so frequently.

Lies were most commonly told by applicants with Master’s degrees or PhDs (85%), and the frequency remained consistent across gender, age, political affiliation, and industry.

Embellishing responsibilities and inventing a more impressive job title were the most common forms of lies (52%), followed by exaggerating the number of people they managed (45%) and the length of time they were employed (37%).

“Many employers now make it clearly part of their recruitment process that a candidate must be honest and truthful about the content of their CV or when describing previous experience,” says DMH Stallard’s Rustom Tata. 

“Some employers, even make it a clear pre-condition of the contract of employment that the contents of the CV or application form, and any representations made at interview about ability and experience are true,” he adds.

“The net effect if they are subsequently found to be untrue is that the employer is entitled to bring the employment to an immediate end. There is also the – albeit remote – possibility that the employer could seek damages from the employee for the deceit or fraudulent misrepresentation.”

One such recent case from the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) found that a career civil servant was right to be dismissed for dishonesty after failing to disclose that he had been terminated from his previous role for gross misconduct.

The judgment, released on 7 February, rejected the claimant’s arguments that the application form was ambiguous and that he had not intentionally hidden the dismissal.

“The fact that the respondent might have found out by other means (and did ultimately do so) does not take away from the claimant’s obligations under his declaration in the application form not to withhold relevant information,” said Judge Crowther.

“The failure to disclose deprived the respondent of the opportunity of exploring the issue at the interview stage and forming its own judgment as to whether employment should be offered considering the full and true facts.”

Tata adds: “While in practice, many employers don’t carry out verification checks on dates of employment, for those that do, attention to detail may disclose dishonesty by the candidate.”