But the independence is not unlimited, as central banks are ultimately accountable to the political authorities. One could see transparency as an obligation that follows from gaining independence. Independence requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. Transparency is also important for preserving the political acceptance for central bank independence. Finally, let me draw attention to another important issue, namely how to make good collective decisions. Monetary policy decisions are group decisions for two reasons. First, the interest rate decisions are usually taken by a monetary policy committee. Second, the inputs for the decisions are produced by the central bank staff. There has been a significant increase in the research on monetary policy committees during the last years, but the role of the staff in the decision-making process has received remarkably little attention in the literature. At Norges Bank, the staff members have two roles; producer (of analyses, forecasts, research, etc) and adviser. Each economist at Norges Bank has to give his or her interest rate advice before the interest rate meetings, and we have a system of aggregating the advice up to the governor and myself. Since most central banks have a large pool of highly skilled staff members, it is important to utilise this potential. What is the best way to aggregate the judgements of the  10  Duisenberg, Wim (2001): “Letter of Dr. W. F. Duisenberg, President of the ECB to the Chairperson of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs”, www.ecb.int. BIS Review 132/2008  7  staff members?

Nevertheless, to ensure visibility of the implementation of reforms, the Basel Committee has been regularly publishing information about members’ adoption of Basel III. We will continue to do this so as to keep all stakeholders and the markets informed, and to maintain peer pressure where necessary. It is especially important that jurisdictions that are home to global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) make every effort to issue final regulations at the earliest possible opportunity. But simply issuing domestic rules is not enough to achieve what the G20 Leaders asked for: full, timely and consistent implementation of Basel III. In response to this call, in 2012 the Committee initiated what has become known as the Regulatory Consistency Assessment Programme (RCAP). The regular progress reports are simply one part of this programme, which assesses domestic regulations’ compliance with the Basel standards, and examines the outcomes at individual banks. The RCAP process will be fundamental to ensuring confidence in regulatory ratios and promoting a level playing field for internationally-operating banks. It is inevitable that, as the Committee begins to review aspects of the regulatory framework in far more detail than it (or anyone else) has ever done in the past, we will find aspects of implementation that do not meet the G20’s aspiration: full, timely and consistent. We are going to find parts of the framework that have been implemented only in part, or late, or inconsistently. The financial crisis identified that, like the standards themselves, implementation of global standards was not as robust as it should have been.