MPC external communications code

Introduction

Consistent, effective and appropriate communications are essential for the Bank to achieve its aims and objectives, and to maintain its credibility as a publicly accountable organisation. This Code outlines how Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) members should manage their external communications.

The Bank’s effectiveness depends upon its authority, its reputation for rigorous analysis, integrity and independence. Members of the MPC in their communications have a special responsibility to promote and protect the reputation of the MPC and the Bank and the integrity of its decision-making processes. The purpose of this Code is to ensure that MPC members, at all times, avoid statements and conduct that could in any way undermine public trust in the MPC in particular or the Bank more generally.

This Code applies to all MPC members, equally outside of the workplace and continues to apply for an agreed period after the end of the MPC member’s term.

MPC members are also subject to a separate statutory Code of Practice relating to conflicts of interest (the MPC Conflicts Code). This highlights members must avoid making public statements that could call into question their political impartiality in their public role. 

Communications on Government Policy

1: Members must at all times refrain from publicly questioning the inflation target set by the Government.

2: Members must not comment on Government policy, except for where there are direct implications for the statutory objectives of the policy committee(s) of which they are members.

3: Such comments made by MPC members should focus on fiscal policy in terms of the prospects for monetary policy and avoid comments on individual fiscal measures. Members must avoid comments on what should or should not be (or should / should not have been) included in fiscal events. 

Communications on Monetary Policy

4: The Bank of England Act 1998 specifies that decisions of the Committee are to be reached by a vote of all members present at the meeting. The MPC has discretion to determine its own procedures for taking votes and determining when a decision has been reached.

5: The published minutes of the MPC’s meetings record the votes of the members. Members are fully entitled to explain their policy positions in public after their votes have been published in the MPC minutes, but in doing so must respect the MPC’s collective communications.

6: It is recognised that the MPC may wish to keep open the option, outside the normal policy round, of making a collective statement, in response to particular circumstances. For example, when the MPC believe there are misunderstandings in the markets a clarification would be helpful. Such statements will be delivered only by the Governor.

7: Members must not make statements that might give clues to developments in monetary analysis that have not been disclosed publicly, or that might confuse or mislead the public about monetary policy.

8: They must not provide detail of the MPC’s discussion beyond what appears in the published record (transcripts of MPC policy decision meetings are published after an eight-year lag). Where they express personal views about monetary policy and other matters of public interest, members should consider carefully whether these might create misunderstandings of the MPC’s actions, impair the formulation of policy or undermine the standing of the Bank.

9: Members will from time to time receive privileged access to confidential official statistics on a pre-release basis, as sanctioned by the National Statistician. Members must ensure that they do not provide any information or clues relating to the nature of those statistics to persons who are not in receipt of similar privileged access to those data.

10: Where an MPC member is recused from issues and decisions as a result of an actual or perceived conflict of interest in line with the MPC Conflicts Code, they must not give speeches, appear on panels, contribute to articles and give other media interventions on that subject (unless and until they are no longer recused or have consulted the Bank’s Secretary and obtained advance approval from the Governor, as chair of the MPC).

Communications during the MPC Quiet Period

11: The purpose of the Quiet Period is to prevent undue public speculation or market volatility about MPC decisions.

12: The MPC Quiet Period begins when MPC deliberations commence (usually 8 or 9 days before the decision is announced) and lasts until the point of publication. Any topic likely to appear in the Minutes of the meeting or in the Monetary Policy Report would normally be covered by the Quiet Period.

13: During the Quiet Period, MPC members must not give speeches or talk to the media - on or off the record - on monetary policy topics^{footnote [1]}. Interviews on monetary policy topics must not take place or be published/broadcast during the Quiet Period.

14: MPC members must not participate in or attend external engagements (i.e. meetings with businesses, academia, regional visits and the Bank’s outreach programme) where monetary policy topics might be discussed during the Quiet Period.

15: Regular meetings with domestic and international authorities, and regulatory or central banking counterparts, and meetings relating to members’ executive functions should continue, but members must bear in mind the importance of avoiding undue public speculation or market volatility.

16: During the Quiet Period, MPC members must not make any public or private comment, on or off the record, about their personal view or vote on the day of the policy announcement.

Forward speaking plans

17: Members must report and discuss their forward speaking and media plans – both formal and informal – with the Bank’s Press Office when it is likely that an MPC matter may be discussed. This will aid the Press Office in advising on timings for speaking or publication plans.

18: Speeches, articles and other media contributions that cover issues relevant to the decisions of the MPC must be circulated to other MPC members and the Bank’s Press Office allowing an opportunity to comment on the content at least two working days in advance of delivery or publication. This can be circulated through the MPC Secretariat.

19: Where the subjects under discussion bear no relationship to the activities of the Bank in general or to membership of the MPC, members should still keep the Press Office informed. 

 20: Members must also circulate speeches, articles, and other planned media contributions relevant to the wider work of the Bank appropriately through the Press Office at least two working days in advance of delivery or publication.

21: The dissemination of embargoed documents, speeches or other material to journalists in advance of publication should only take place through Press Office. This requires prior approval given by ED-Communications, in consultation with the Governor’s and General Counsel’s Offices, or dissemination through “lock-in” arrangements on the Bank’s premises^{footnote [2]}. 

Lectures and academic journals 

22: Members of the MPC must treat public lectures and publication of academic research in professional journals – in the UK or internationally - in the same way as speeches. They must keep the Bank’s Press Office informed of all events, whether public or private, where it is likely that monetary policy topics may be discussed, giving the Governor and other MPC members an opportunity to comment on the content.

23: Where MPC members’ teaching programmes touch on monetary policy or closely related fields of economics, they must bear in mind the importance of avoiding undue speculation about the MPC’s decisions. 

External engagement

24: Members may be invited to meet individual firms or attend meetings sponsored by them. Such bilateral meetings may be a useful source of market intelligence.

25: However, members should weigh the benefits against the possibility that they are handing the firms concerned a competitive advantage, or may be perceived to do so. Access must not be confined to a select number of organisations and comments made by the member should be kept to material already in the public domain with care taken not to say anything that might be construed as private information with a bearing on future monetary policy decisions.

26: A Bank notetaker must always be present. MPC members and their offices/secretariats should continue to liaise with Press Office and Stakeholder Relations in advance if invited to such meetings to help facilitate effective monitoring. Communications Directorate will circulate internally a list of members’ recent meetings on a regular basis.

27: Outside of the Market Participants Group meetings, and in their capacity as an MPC member, members must not agree to attend any private roundtable event with, or hosted by, financial market participants, where monetary policy topics are likely to be discussed.

28: MPC members can only participate in such roundtables or similar private events if these relate solely to their executive responsibilities and not as an MPC member discussing monetary policy topics. 

For MPC Members who are part of the FPC (or other statutory committees)

29: MPC members who are members of the FPC, and therefore subject to the analogous FPC Quiet Period^{footnote [3]}, may find that it is necessary to speak on financial stability policy topics during an MPC Quiet Period.

30: If that is the case, then they must do so only very carefully and always ensuring that they avoid discussing anything to do with monetary policy topics and adhere to the FPC Members External Communications Code.

31: MPC members who are members of the FPC (or other statutory committees, namely the PRC and/or FMIC), should make clear in which capacity they are speaking when delivering any external communications and follow the requirements of the Quiet Period as above. 

For MPC members who are not part of the FPC

32: Those MPC members who are not members of the FPC should avoid discussing FPC decisions. This would not preclude more general comments, for example on the design of policy frameworks.