Once upon a time, the Bank of England was headed by a series of anonymous figures, whose identities remained largely unknown to the public. Yet now, in the age of the Monetary Policy Committee, the Governor and his team have become familiar figures in the financial world – thanks partly to Liz Truss’s regular swipes at Andrew Bailey et al. So it is perhaps no surprise then that the BoE has stepped up its spending on social media – with even Bailey making a guest appearance on the Bank’s TikTok account.
So keen is the Bank to promote its work online that it has just shelled out £2,417 on equipment to ‘create content for our new Instagram profile.’ This is in addition to nearly £79,000 spent since the beginning of 2021 on social media advertising for the whole of the bank including £33,566 in 2022 alone. Presumably they needed it in the year of the mini-Budget eh? Sadly, Mr S was unable to find out how much the BoE is spending on salaries for its tweet-loving, Insta-posting staff under Freedom of Information laws. The Bank claims that ‘given the small size of the social media team, it is likely that providing salary spend for all years listed would allow individuals’ salaries to be deduced by third parties’. Spoilsports.
Still, at least we know how much our £495,000-a-year Governor gets paid – a figure that, curiously enough, doesn’t appear in any of the Bank’s adverts online…
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