Even Bank of England staff reject pay rise offer

EMBATTLED Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has urged workers to exercise restraint in their pay negotiations – but his own staff are turning a deaf ear.

Despite being urged to ‘do their bit’ to help curb inflation now running at 11 per cent, trade unions at the Bank have rejected the offer of a three per cent pay rise.

The Bank says that it will continue to negotiate with Unite, which represents 600 workers at the 300-year-old institution in the

City’s Threadneedle Street, while remaining ‘aware of the cost of living pressures on colleagues’.

A Unite spokesman would not disclose its pay demands, other than to say that it was ‘not necessarily tracked with inflation’.

The spokesman added: ‘Unite remains in negotiations with the Bank of England over pay. The original offer was rejected by members’.

Mr Bailey, 63, who has received widespread criticism for his performance in the job, sparked anger earlier this year when he ‘couldn’t remember’ his own £575,000 salary.

He told MPs: ‘Um, it’s somewhere over £500,000 – I can’t tell you exactly what it was, I don’t carry that around in my head.’