Bank of England seeks PR support to promote diversity credentials

The Bank has issued the brief to bring in an external agency for a fixed term of three months.

This is the first time that the Bank of England has proactively sought PR support to promote its diversity credentials.

The brief comes as a response to the Bank’s Annual Diversity Report 2011, which includes a plan to develop ‘public relations material and stories to increase public awareness of the Bank’s inclusive and diverse workforce’ in 2012.

The pitch process is in the early stages, and no agencies have yet been shortlisted for the brief.

The winning agency is expected to start work in March.

A spokeswoman for the Bank said: ‘It is something that is important to us. We are committed to ensuring that we have a diverse workforce, and one way of ensuring we do that is by making potential recruits consider us to be such an employer, so that we are attractive to them.’

The spokeswoman declined to comment on the budget for the diversity campaign, but added that it was ‘quite a small project compared to everything else going on’.

The news comes as the Bank is set to launch another round of quantitative easing with the aim of preventing the UK economy from falling back into another recession.

The Bank is likely to pump at least £50bn into the economy by purchasing government gilts from pension funds and insurers with electronically created money.

Former BBC business journalist Nils Blythe leads the Bank’s comms. He is expected to remain in the role until March, when it will be resumed by Jenny Scott, who is currently on adoption leave.

This article was first published on prweek.com