Ethnic Minority Employees Leaving Bank Of England In Disproportionate Numbers

ETHNIC minority employees are leaving the Bank of England (BoE) in disproportionate numbers and feel more uncomfortable with the organisation's culture, according to research.

The bank's non-executive directors admitted the "BAME [black, Asian and minority ethnic] resignation rate was above that for the bank as a whole" and said that it was addressing the problem, according to minutes of a recent meeting.

The Commons Treasury select committee repeatedly has raised concerns about the lack of representation at senior levels. The monetary policy committee, which sets interest rates, has eight white men and one white woman. There are no BME directors among its 12-strong members of court.

BoE governor Mark Carney, 53, set targets in 2017 to increase the number of ethnic minority employees to 20 per cent by 2020 and the numbers in senior roles to 13 per cent by 2022.

But according to the minutes of a committee meeting between the court of directors in November, which emerged last week, the bank has failed on ethnic diversity "on every metric there was" and there was a call for a "step change in approach".

Members of the committee said "there was no simple solution; it needed to be tackled on all fronts".

Ethnic minority employees make up 18 per cent of the Bank's 4,378 employees but 23 per cent of those leaving it. Over the past four years, the number of BME staff leaving has been disproportionately high.

Carney has said last year that "promoting diversity and inclusion has been a top strategic priority".