The Treasury Committee has attacked the Bank of England over the lack of diversity in the lender’s senior management.
MPs are threatening to block candidates for senior public sector jobs in order to ensure a higher female representation in Threadneedle Street.
Following the appointment of academic Jonathan Haskel to the MPC and Bradley Fried as head of its oversight board, the committee chair of the Treasury Nicky Morgan wrote: “whilst the Committee has approved the appointments of ProfHaskel and Mr Fried, it’s disappointing that the gender balance at the most senior levels of the Bank of England will not be improved.”
“With the Bank’s female representation in senior management roles at the Bank decreasing to 29 percent last year, it seems increasingly unlikely that the Bank will meet its own diversity strategy to have 35 percent female participation in senior management positions by 2020,” she added.
The bank’s current ambitions are to increase the proportion of women in senior roles to 35 percent and the equivalent BAME figure to 13 percent by 2022.
Labour MP for Leeds West and chair of the business select committee, Rachel Reeves, expressed disappointment at the new appointments at the Bank of England, saying that: “The top jobs [at the Bank] seem to be reserved for men.”
“The Committee raised concerns about the Bank’s gender diversity following the appointment of Sir Dave Ramsden and Prof Silvana Tenreyro in October 2017. Since October, only three out of 10 public appointments and reappointments to the Bank’s committees have been women.”
“With the Bank’s female representation in senior management roles at the Bank decreasing to 29 percent last year, it seems increasingly unlikely that the Bank will meet its own diversity strategy to have 35 percent female participation in senior management positions by 2020.”
For Hasken’s role, four women and one man were interviewed for the role.