Bank of England under fire over £23m bonus payouts

theguardian.com:

The Bank of England, which has been criticised for underestimating the threat of rising inflation, last year paid out bonuses to its staff amounting to more than £23m, the Observer can reveal.

This bonus pot was at its highest level for at least two years, with more than 4,260 employees receiving performance awards. Andrew Bailey, the bank’s governor, was widely criticised earlier this year after telling Britain’s workers that they should not be asking for big pay rises because inflation had to be kept under control.

The bank is tasked by the government with hitting an inflation target of 2%, but the current rate stands at 9.4%. Lord Sikka, emeritus professor of accounting at Sheffield University, said: “Bonuses should only be paid for extraordinary performance, but there is no evidence the bank has delivered even an ordinary performance. They are unjustified.”

All employees at the bank, with the exception of Bailey, who was appointed in March 2020, are eligible for a discretionary annual performance award. Bank officials say the vast majority of its employees do not work on monetary policy.

Bailey earned a package totalling £597,592 in the year to the end of February: this included his base salary of £495,000 and a payment in lieu of pension of £99,000. It was reported earlier this year that he had turned down a 1.5% pay rise.

The total bonus pot paid to Bank of England staff in 2021/22 was £23,325,265, up from £22,080,732 the previous year.

Figures disclosed to the Observer under freedom of information laws show that 34 members of staff were given awards of between £15,000 and £20,000.

Bank officials say the discretionary award budget has been 10% of the total salary bill in the past two financial years, but the number of its