Bank of England’s Mark Carney defends move not to publish governor shortlist
Bank of England governor Mark Carney has defended the application process to lead the central bank and suggested that too much transparency would discourage people from applying.
Carney is due to step down in January and MPs and pressure groups have called on chancellor Sajid Javid to publish the short list of candidates to allow some public scrutiny of the appointment.
Officially, the Queen will choose the 121st governor upon the advice of the Prime Minister. But in practice it will be Javid who picks the person to take Carney’s role.
The governor today told MPs: “There’s a balance in terms of encouraging as many people as possible to apply and absolute transparency throughout the process.”
He said the process was more transparent than those at the European Central Bank (ECB) and US Federal Reserve.
Carney said: “The government has come a long way over the years in terms of the transparency of the process: public advertisement, anyone can apply… a headhunter firm used to also encourage others domestically and from around the world to consider the post.”
Among those tipped for the top job are UK financial watchdog chief Andrew Bailey, BoE macroeconomic policy chief Ben Broadbent, and Santander chair Shriti Vadera.
Taking questions from parliament’s Treasury Select Committee that were sourced from the public via Twitter, Carney said there was “ample time” to pick the next governor.
“The most recent president of the ECB, Mario Draghi, was appointed a few weeks in advance of taking office so there’s time. There’ll be an orderly transition.”
“The chancellor has indicated that from his perspective the process is on track, obviously the government… is quite occupied with some urgent affairs of state at the moment.”
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