Lord Gadhia among 4 new non-executive directors of Bank of England internal court

The appointments come during a period of in-depth scrutiny of the central bank’s mandates.

• Shubham Ghosh
• 15 August, 2022

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By: Shubham Ghosh

The British government is set to appoint four new non-executive directors to the Bank of England’s internal court, which acts as the financial body’s supervisory board.

Sky News reported that the treasury was set to appoint Lord Gadhia, a businessman of Ugandan origin; Soumen Das, chief finance officer of Segro; Sabine Chalmers, general counsel at BT and Tom Shropshire, general counsel of Diageo. The report added that finance minister Nadhim Zahawi signed off on the appointments. However, the treasury did not comment.

The current non-executive members include Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC; Baroness Harding of Winscombe, a former chief executive of TalkTalk; Sir Ron Kalifa, chairman of Network International, the payments company; and Diana Noble, former chief executive of CDC, a development finance company.

According to a report by The Times, UK, the appointments come during a period of in-depth scrutiny of the central bank’s mandates. Last week, the bank revised its inflation forecasts and warned about a prolonged recession. Foreign secretary Liz Truss, who is currently in the race for the post of the prime minister against Rishi Sunak, indicated in response that she, like her rival, would give the ministers authority to override city regulators.

The court of directors of the bank, which is independent of the government, meets every month to look into the bank’s internal matters. It has no influence over monetary policy or financial regulation and the non-executive members are generally people with a background in business or finance.

The members of the court of directors are appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of the premier and the chancellor.

The court, which also oversees the bank’s personnel and governance issues, is split up into five sub-committees. It features members of the monetary policy committee that sets the interest rate — Andrew Bailey, the governor, and Sir Jon Cunliffe, Sir Dave Ramsden and Ben Broadbent, the deputy governors.

In July, the Bank of England said it would appoint David Roberts, a former chairman of Nationwide, as the head of the court, starting this autumn.