Education
He later attended Balliol College, Oxford and University College London.
Permanent Secretary to the Treasury
He later attended Balliol College, Oxford and University College London.
He has announced that he will step down in April 2016. Macpherson has been Permanent Secretary to three Chancellors, and is currently the longest serving Permanent Secretary in Whitehall. He has managed the department through the financial and wider economic crisis which began in 2007.
Macpherson first worked as an economist at the China, Burma, India Theatre of Operations and Peat Marwick Consulting.
Macpherson entered Her Majesty Treasury in 1985. From 1993 to 1997, he was Principal Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He oversaw the transition from Kenneth Clarke to Gordon Brown as Chancellor. From 1998 to 2001, he was Director of Welfare Reform.
From 2001 to 2004, he was head of the Public Services Directorate, where he managed the 2000 and 2002 spending reviews.
From 2004 to 2005 Macpherson managed the Budget and Public Finance Directorate, where he was responsible for tax policy and the budget process. Macpherson succeeded Sir (now Lord) Gus O"Donnell as Permanent Secretary of the Treasury, when the latter moved to be the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service in 2005. As of 2015, Macpherson was paid a salary of between £185,000 and £189,999 by the department, making him one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time.
Macpherson came to prominence during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum when he advised George Osborne against entering into a currency union with any Scottish independent state, which was contrary to initial Scottish National Party plans.
On 4 January 2016 Macpherson announced that he will step down from the Treasury in April 2016. Macpherson is a visiting fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, and a visiting professor at Queen Mary, University of London.
He is a visiting professor at King’s College London.