MNI: UK Treasury Select Ctte Approves BOE Ramsden, Tenreyro

--TSC Raises Concerns Over Lack Of Diversity At Top of Bank

By David Robinson

     LONDON (MNI) - The Treasury Select Committee approved David Ramsden as a

Bank of England Deputy Governor and Silvana Tenreyro as an external member of

the Monetary Policy Committee following their confirmation hearings on Tuesday.

     The TSC under its first female head, Nicky Morgan, also raised concerns

about the lack of diversity in the upper echelons of the Bank. The TSC,

unsurprisingly, did not question the technical qualifications of former top

Treasury official Ramsden or Harvard and LSE economist Tenreyro.

     It did, however, following on from its questioning of Bank Governor Mark

Carney, highlight its concerns about the composition of staff at the top of the

Bank.

     On Tuesday Carney said the Bank was starting to diversify from its position

as "an almost exclusively white male institution."

     While there was no gap in pay between genders for the same job there was a

median 24% gender pay gap, Carney told the TSC, due to the far greater numbers

of men in the top jobs. The Treasury appoints external MPC members and the

appointment of the Governor is a Crown appointment.

     "The Treasury must make all efforts to encourage as diverse range of

candidates for the Bank's policy committees as possible," Morgan said in a

statement, adding that the TSC had written to raise its concerns with the senior

politician at the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond.

     Carney told the TSC it was aiming to improve diversity by relying less on

its traditional approach of recruiting predominantly economics graduates from

ten top ranked universities, as this set is male dominated.

     The Bank is "moving away from recruiting just economists, recruiting from

40 universities as opposed to 10, as we used to do, and only taking 50% of

intake as economists, as opposed to broader disciplines where women are much

more prevalent," Carney said.

     The TSC is upping the pressure on Carney to deliver on his pledges of

improving diversity.

--MNI London Bureau; tel: +44 203-586-2223; email: david.robinson@marketnews.com

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