Recommendation 10

The Bank’s capacity to make complex and innovative deals is limited by the lack of suitably qualified staff members. The Bank has worked with Treasury to complete recruitment to key senior leadership positions that were not filled at launch. At the time we took evidence in early November 2022 the Bank had 162 employees, of which 16 are permanent, the remainder being contractors or Treasury secondees. This is a shortfall against the Bank’s plan to recruit around 272 permanent employees by September 2023. The Bank reimburses interim staff at day rates. The Bank’s Chief Executive said that recruiting permanent staff is his biggest leadership challenge. The Bank told us that while it has very good temporary staff, “every (permanent) role is competed for” on quality, which is adding time to the recruitment process.26 The Bank added that it would “not compromise quality for speed” and wanted to wait for the right candidates.27