Team size: c.213 (across five core divisions plus a leadership team and a strategy and operations team) 

What significant projects or deals has the legal team worked on in the past year? Can you provide examples of successful outcomes or major accomplishments?  

In the past year we have supported the Bank of England (BoE) in its mission to promote the good of the people of the United Kingdom by maintaining monetary and financial stability, navigating legal risk across technically complex and high-profile projects, including: 

Financial crisis response – The failures of Silicon Valley Bank UK and Credit Suisse posed the first major tests to the resolution regime since the global financial crisis. Our advice on the BoE’s legal toolkit was instrumental in ensuring SVB UK depositors’ money was kept safe and business continued as normal.   We subsequently worked with HM Treasury on a legislative proposal to improve continuity of access to deposits in failed smaller banks.  

Regulatory landscape – We helped the BoE make progress on regulatory reform, including a new regime for UK insurers (Solvency UK) and post‑crisis capital reforms for banks (Basel 3.1). We worked closely with HM Treasury on the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, which gave the Prudential Regulation Authority a secondary objective to support growth and competitiveness, created a new statutory framework for financial market infrastructure supervision and established a Central Counterparty resolution regime. 

Payments – We have worked on strategic priorities including: the BoE’s proposed regulatory regime for systemic stablecoins; a potential retail central bank digital currency; the digitisation of financial assets through the digital securities sandbox; and the renewal of the Real-Time Gross Settlement service, which settles over GBP£775 bn on an average day. 

Banknotes – We advised on the launch of a new wholesale cash regime that ensures people can continue to use cash, as well as the circulation of banknotes featuring His Majesty King Charles III.  

Apart from legal matters, has the team worked on other company initiatives? 

We aim for every colleague to be successful at the BoE in a diverse and inclusive community in which colleagues are fully supported to thrive as their whole selves and can access learning opportunities to develop their careers.  This is inspired by the Governor’s ambition for a human, humble BoE in step with the changing world.     

LD’s vision is implemented through its ‘Our LD’ strategy, which consists of three key pillars:  

Our Selves – including Social Mobility and DEI Forums 

Our Development – including Knowledge Management and Career Opportunities Forums 

Our Engagement  – including Legal Horizon Scanning and Cross-Authority Engagement Forums 

Our LD enriches the experience of colleagues, with the aim that the Directorate can reflect society as a whole and embed an outward and forward-looking mentality.   

Each Forum leverages colleagues’ professional and lived experience to deliver key initiatives, such as: )i) Co-facilitation of Freshfields’ Stephen Lawrence Scheme, which aims to address the disproportionate under-representation in large commercial law firms and other City institutions of black men from less socially mobile backgrounds; (ii) pro-bono scheme through our partnership with the South Westminster Legal Advice clinic; (iii) coaching series and mentoring scheme; (iv) a new LD wiki that enables innovative sharing of knowledge.

LD has also launched the Trainee Solicitor Development Programme through which apprentices qualify as solicitors at the BoE – we welcomed our first cohort under the programme in August 2023.