BoE Governor supports community bank plans
GOVERNOR of the Bank of England Andrew Bailey is supportive of enabling more people to work outside London, as well as the setting-up of a community bank in Wales to ensure people who need cash can still access it.
As part of the UK Government’s levelling-up agenda, more civil service jobs will be moved out of London.
The Treasury has already committed to setting up a new operation in Darlington, as well moving hundreds of jobs to Glasgow.
In Wales, more non-devolved civil services jobs will be relocating from London, including the Department for International Trade.
With its historic HQ at Threadneedle Street in the centre of London, the Bank of England, which employs 4,500, also has a network of regional agency offices, including in Cardiff under its agent for Wales Stephen Hicks.
Mr Bailey said: “We are exploring quite a few things actually and our intention is to set something up in Leeds, where we already have a presence. We have regional agents like Stephen Hicks in Wales and one of the things we are exploring is in a sense to create more accommodation in the agencies so the staff that want to work in say Wales can do so. It is one of my ideas that we can be flexible in that sense.”
The Governor said it was too early to say how jobs with the central bank could be located outside of London.
Asked if the UK’s Government economic levelling-up agenda needed to be assessed on its progress with clear measurable targets, he said: “My guess is that you will start to see that emerge actually. I think there is quite a lot of sensible dynamism behind this.”
He added: “Quite a lot of employers think it is happening and I think Covid is going to give it quite an incentive, because when I think about us as employers, I think we are going to find that more of our staff are going to work outside London and frankly that is healthy, because one of the things as an employer of people in London that I worry about is house prices and affordability. When I look at when I started in the workforce compared to today, it is a vastly different situation. So I think enabling more people to work away from London is a good thing.”
Against the backdrop of bank branch closures, Mr Bailey said he would be happy to work with the Welsh Government on its plans to establish a community bank with a network of branches across Wales.
The Welsh Government has been supporting Cambria Cydfuddiannol Ltd with its initial development of its Banc Cambria community proposition.
The project has the backing of an undisclosed financial institution, believed to be a mutual but not the Principality Building Society. Any community bank would need regulatory approval and tens of millions in set-up costs and required reserves.
On the community bank plans, Mr Bailey said: “I would be very happy to work with the Welsh Government on their ideas and plans for that, because obviously we provide the cash and banknotes, and we would be very keen to see that people who want cash and banknotes have access to them. There is still a section of the population that is very much dependent on banknotes and cash, and we do not want to see them deprived of that. So I would be very happy to work with the Welsh Government on that.”