Corporate responsibility

People

As an employer, we value diversity, encourage inclusion and support staff wellbeing.

Diversity and inclusion go together

We’re working to create a workforce that reflects the diversity of the society we serve. And we think diversity and inclusion go hand-in-hand. So we’re also developing an inclusive workplace culture that allows people to be themselves at work and achieve their potential.

As part of his appointment as Governor, Andrew Bailey committed to leading an institution that is truly diverse. At the launch of the Meeting Varied People initiative in Spring 2021, Andrew highlighted that identity and cognitive diversity are equally important and that his desire to have an inclusive and open culture will mean people can speak up, ensuring we make better decisions.

We’re building a diverse workforce

Diversity targets

We want to reflect the society that we serve by increasing diversity at the Bank of England. By developing a set of targets, we are focusing on where progress is most needed. 

Our aim is to address the female and minority ethnic underrepresentation in certain areas of the organisation. The targets we’ve set are designed to build pathways for appointing more minority ethnic and female senior managers, and to ensure our pipeline of talent is appropriately diverse. 

We have also introduced specific targets to address the disproportionately low representation of Black people at the Bank of England - particularly at senior scales (including staff with Black heritage).

We have had representation targets in place for both women and minority ethnic colleagues since 2014. These were revised in 2020 following a review by our governing body in consultation with our Women in the Bank and Bank of England Ethnic Minority employee networks. Our new targets are set for end-February 2028 (with a review in 2025). 

To support our progress towards the new targets, we are taking clear actions and have implemented internal governance to help us to keep on track and accountable. We publish our progress in our annual report.

Our progress towards our gender targets can be found below.

*ED and Director appointment data looks at 12 months before the end of the financial year. For July 2023, data goes back to March 2023 only. 
** Post July appointment not included in the data.

Whilst our inclusion targets focus on gender equality and ethnicity, we’re also committed to the inclusion and support of all colleagues regardless of their characteristics or background. For our LGBTQ+ colleagues, as well as our colleagues with disabilities (visible and non-visible), we created our disability and sexual orientation and gender identity charters.

We publish an update on our progress towards our diversity targets in our annual report.

Inclusive workplaces

We want everyone who works for us to feel that they can be themselves at work. We encourage a workplace culture which enables this to happen. This includes creating communities within the Bank of England (staff networks) which help colleagues to come together over shared experiences, interests and backgrounds.

Charters

We are signatories of several Charters.

• Women in Finance Charter which is a commitment to build a more balanced and fair industry.
• Business in the Community’s Race at Work Charter aims to improve equality of opportunity in the workplace.
• The Valuable 500, which aims to get disability on to the agenda of Boards.
• The Tech Talent Charter which drives greater diversity and inclusion in technology roles.

Wellbeing

The wellbeing of our staff is important to us

We provide a wide range of services, benefits and initiatives to support staff with their mental, physical, social wellbeing and financial wellbeing. This includes:

• flexible working
• a network of Wellbeing Champions, Peer Supporters and Mental Health First Aiders
• seminars to help support wellbeing and good work-life balance
• practical advice and support through our employee assistance programme
• in-house counsellors
• discounted gym memberships

We encourage staff to be open about mental health

We work hard to challenge mental health stigma. For example, we provide our line-managers with training and we made a video of our staff talking about their experiences to encourage others to.

We have a staff mental health network that raises awareness and provides support. For example, by taking part in the Green Ribbon Campaign and turning our Threadneedle Street building green.

Our senior staff support this work too. Our former Governor Mark Carney highlighted it in The Express. And our executive directors explained our approach in a case study by the City Mental Health Alliance.

We also recognise mental wellbeing is an important issue for people starting their career. Watch a video featuring some of our most recent joiners, as well as colleagues further along in their career, discuss their own experiences of mental ill-health.

In both 2020 and 2021, The City Mental Health Alliance awarded us its highest accreditation mark in their annual 'Thriving at Work' assessment.

Community

Many people who work at the Bank of England choose to support the charitable causes they care about by fundraising and volunteering. 

We support them to do this by offering volunteering leave and by matching the funds that our colleagues raise.

Our support for individual charities

Every two years we support three individual charities. We refer to these charities as our ‘ charities of the year’. Once selected, we raise awareness of their causes and continue to fundraise for them over two years.

We choose these charities by inviting our colleagues to advocate for causes they support. Then we ask colleagues to vote to decide which we should choose.

Currently, we are supporting The Childhood Trust, Mental Health Innovations (who provide the service Shout) and The Trussell Trust until November 2025.

Our local community partnerships

We partner with organisations such as Governors for Schools and The Switch to support local communities. Some colleagues act as school governors across the UK, and others have taken part in both virtual and in person schemes to support pupils at schools in Tower Hamlets. This year we will focus on programmes to develop these students’ recruitment skills.

We also offer mentoring to students and young people through our partnerships with the Social Mobility Foundation, East London Business Association and With Insight Education. 

Our staff volunteer at a range of charities including a local homeless charity close to our Threadneedle Street office, city farms and around our local green spaces.

Environment

We’re committed to improving our environmental performance. We’ve developed a ‘Greener Bank’ programme that’s supported by a staff network of over 150 ‘green champions’. Our approach includes:

• changing how we produce and recycle our banknotes
• using a 100% renewable energy supply (electricity and gas) for all our sites
• making changes to make our buildings more energy efficient, such as switching to LED lighting
• supporting biodiversity at our sites, including introducing beehives.
• continuing more environmentally-friendly business practices like holding virtual meetings to reduce travel and using less paper
• encouraging our staff to use reusable cups and food containers

You can find out more about our carbon footprint and our work to reduce our environmental impact in our annual report and in our climate-related financial disclosure.