By Peter Rodgers, Secretary of the Bank of England.
The Bank of England Act received Royal Assent on 23 April 1998 and will come into force on 1 June 1998. It provides a statutory basis for the functions of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which was established as an interim committee following an arrangement set out in a letter from the Chancellor to the Governor dated 6 May 1997. The Act also transfers responsibility for the supervision and surveillance of banks from the Bank of England to the Financial Services Authority. The governance of the Bank itself is changed by the Act, which reforms the constitution, composition and duties of Court, the Bank’s Board of Directors. The Act makes new provisions relating to the funding, the accounts and the profits of the Bank, and the collection of monetary statistics by the Bank is backed by legislation for the first time.
The Bank of England Act