Recommendation 5

Maximising the Bank’s impact will depend on close cooperation with government departments, but it has not yet worked out how this will operate in practice. The Treasury intends the Bank to play an important role in achieving key elements of this government’s wider agenda on net zero and levelling up, as reflected in the Banks dual objectives. The Treasury expects the Bank to set out how it intends to work with stakeholders, including policy departments across government. To date the Bank has had limited communications with key stakeholders at senior levels, including the Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs. Engagement with DLUHC in particular will be critical to understanding the needs of local authorities, which will then inform the Bank’s loan and advisory programmes. The lack of clarity surrounding relations with other departments raises the risk that different organisations responsible for net zero and levelling-up could be pulling in different directions. Recommendation: In its Treasury Minute response, the Bank should describe its engagement strategy for working with government departments, focussing in the very short term on how it engages with those departments most critical to delivering its mission, including the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.