Last year alone, the Bank’s Agents met with over 8,000 companies. Recently, we extended the Agents’ reach to include charities, community groups, trades unions and wider civil society. On the engagement ladder, these are examples of the Bank “involving” and “collaborating” with citizens, on a practical day-to-day basis across all parts of the UK. Last year, I extended my own regional programme, with a separate set of visits designed to engage with, and listen to, some of the quieter voices in society, voices otherwise drowned-out in the media cacophony – the voice of charities, community and voluntary groups, local councils, trade unions. And I have sought out those voices in parts of the country that may not otherwise always get a hearing – the under-performing parts of thriving cities as well as communities, towns and cities which are struggling. This regional focus on engaging with the less well-performing parts of the UK is in line with another of the RSA’s recommendations. 11 12 13  Details available at https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2018/february/boe-and-ft-school-blog-competition See https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2018/february/department-of-education-consultation-response?sf84498143=1 England, Hebden, Henderson and Pattie (2015). 6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  6  These visits use approaches to collecting intelligence which are, for me, new – listening methods more familiar from anthropology and sociology than economics and statistics. They involve open, unframed discussions of the issues that matter most to people in their everyday lives, their lived experiences in their local communities, with me as a fly (not bluebottle) on the wall.

The number of website hits has increased markedly since publication of our first layered Inflation Report in November last year. Recently, we have tried to pinpoint more precisely the benefits of layered communication in boosting the public’s understanding and trust. This involved conducting a so-called “randomised control trial” on two groups – a group of experts (students studying economics at university) and a group of non-experts. 10  Both  groups were randomly split with some given layered, and others un-layered, Bank of England content from the Inflation Report. This enabled a direct assessment of the impact of layering on understanding and trust. It would have been a tad disappointing if layering had had no impact. And thank heavens for small mercies that, for both the expert and non-expert groups, layering boosted reported trust and understanding scores. What was more interesting was by how much layering seemed to help. In our sample, the boost to understanding of the economy and monetary policy that came from layering the Inflation Report was larger  8 9 10  Haldane and Turrell (2017). Haldane (2017b). Haldane and McMahon (forthcoming). 5  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  5  than the boost to understanding that came from having studied for an advanced degree in economics. That’s a depressing statistic for those of us who have studied economics, but great news for everyone else. (b) Educational Programme A second strand of the Bank’s engagement strategy is education.