Partners

Why we work with organisations

We work with organisations that help us connect with people across the UK.

This supports the work we do with our Youth Forum, Community forums, Citizens’ Forum and education programme.

Working in partnership in this way means we can reach more people and improve our understanding. So we can make better decisions and create more useful resources.

Partners benefit from working with us too. We help them:

to achieve our common goals
generate and share resources
give a platform for views to be heard
to support their initiatives with our expertise, resources and networks

If you would like to know more about how we can work together, please email: outreach@bankofengland.co.uk.

Our partners

We work with everyone from large national charities to small, grassroots community groups.

Our partners represent people with a diverse range of interests and needs. Below are some examples of partnerships we have formed.

Youth Forum

The Bank of England’s Youth Forum is a series of Youth Panels held across the UK, where we hear from people between 16 and 19 years old. Its purpose is to provide a way for us to engage with young adults, who we have struggled to reach through other means in the past. Through these panels we can gain insight on a range of issues, from policy matters, to helping us to better understand how to communicate with young people.

By getting involved, young people can gain confidence and improve their communication skills by sharing their views and listening to the views of people in their age group.

UK Community Foundations and our Community forums

As the UK’s central bank, it’s our job to set policies that work for people all over the United Kingdom. To help us do that, it’s important we understand how the economy is working. Statistics such as the rate of unemployment or inflation only tell us a part of the story. But talking to people directly can tell us more.

We have a particular interest in engaging with underrepresented and lesser-heard groups from all communities across the UK. We find the best way to engage with these groups is through our Community Forums.

We partner with charities and other community organisations to hold our Community Forums events.

UK Community Foundations is a network organisation for 47 local Community Foundation charities across the UK. Several of these local Community Foundations have helped us to deliver our programme of Community forums.

In turn, they have been able to:

talk to our senior policy makers
share the experiences of the people who use their services and highlight the financial health of the third sector
build an ongoing relationship with us and our local Agents.

Widening access to economics education in partnership with The University of Manchester

In 2024 the Bank commissioned FFT Education Datalab to examine trends in the study of economics from GCSE through to undergraduate level. The research confirmed widespread disparities in the academic study of economics in terms of gender, type of school attended, and regions across England.

The Bank has supported efforts to widen access to economics in schools for a number of years, but the current data reflects that economics as an academic subject is not widely taught in state comprehensive schools. There is also a shortage of trained economics teachers and very low numbers entering the profession. In response to this, the Bank has partnered with the University of Manchester to develop a training programme for qualified teachers to deliver A Level economics alongside their core subject. This is a three-year partnership led by experts in teacher training at the University with support from the Bank.

“The teaching, research and development of economics has a long history at The University of Manchester. Our commitment to equity and diversity across our work is paramount, and this initiative, building on the research from FFT Education Datalab, highlights that we still have much to do. We’re extremely proud to work alongside the Bank of England in producing more teachers of economics.”

Professor Fiona Devine, Vice President and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at The University of Manchester.

A big thank you to our partners

We couldn’t do any of this without the support of the organisations we have worked, and continue to work, in partnership with. Here are just some of them:

Community forums partners

These organisations have worked with us to develop and promote educational resources for schools:

We have partnered with the following organisations to support their work on growing understanding about economics and the economy:

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