one. reflecting that, the bank has recently sought stronger connections with some other crowds, crowds with a different lens on the economy with which it has perhaps had less contact historically – trades unions, charities, community organisations and the like. for more than a year, i have augmented those agents ’ efforts with my own “ townhall ” meetings across the uk. by design, these seek out the views of a wider range of citizens, in a wider range of locations on a wider range of issues around the economy and financial system than has been the case in the past. these events have established for me that there is wisdom in these crowds when gauging some of the key issues shaping the economy and financial system. the lived experience of everyday people making everyday decisions is what makes the economy tick ( and sometimes tock ). tapping that lived experience can add to the bank ’ s understanding of the economy and help it when setting policy to keep the economy stable. there is wisdom in crowds of citizens, as there is in crowds of companies. the bank is now taking a further step towards putting in place an infrastructure to formalise its engagement with citizens. earlier this year, in response to a recommendation from the rsa, we announced that the bank would be setting - up a set of citizens ’ panels across the uk. in the remainder of this year, we will be running trials of these citizen panels to help us decide how best to organise them, before rolling them out systematically, uk - wide, next year. see https : / / www. bankofengland. co. uk / outreach taylor ( 2018 ) also discusses the benefits of deliberative democracy in the rsa ’ s 2018 annual lecture. haldane ( 2018b ). all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches there are a number of key design questions that need to be answered. how do you ensure as wide, diverse and representative a set of citizens as possible? how do you engage citizens who might not understand or trust the bank? how much time needs to be set aside to enable the deliberative process to be fruitful? and how many people should you engage to get the balance right between diversity and deliberation? we are working with a range of partners, including the rsa, to come up with answers. the plan would be to set up one citizen panel for each of the bank ’ s 12 regional agencies. with roughly 25 citizens per panel,

of the economy and finance. looking ahead, in my view greater personalisation of central bank communications holds promise. central banks often affect people ’ s lives in ways which are lagged and indirect and hence difficult for them to observe. earlier this year, i constructed “ personalised ” scorecards, which set out the impact of the bank ’ s monetary policy easing actions after the global financial crisis on the income, wealth and well - being of citizens across the uk. this recognised that the impact of monetary policy on people ’ s lives is often quite different depending on their personal circumstances – old versus young, borrower versus saver, home - owner versus renter, north haldane and mcmahon ( 2018 ) and bholat et al ( 2018 ). haldane ( 2018a ). all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches versus south. casting the impact of monetary policy in terms of averages or aggregates tends not to resonate with people ’ s personal experience. spelling out the benefits in personalised terms can potentially increase understanding and awareness of central banks ’ actions. there is already a precedent for this in another arm of uk policymaking – tax policy. taxpayers in the uk receive a personal scorecard, telling them how their tax payments have funded spending on various public goods at the macro - economic level. this personalisation has been found to have improved the public ’ s understanding and acceptance of tax policies. ( b ) public education a second way of improving public understanding is through improved public education. many central banks have made efforts in this direction over a number of years, including through school visits, schools competitions and schools materials, including at the bank of england and bank of estonia. that does not yet appear to have satiated demand from pupils and their parents, almost 80 % of who say they think economics should form part of the curriculum. in part in response, earlier this year the bank of england launched a new education strategy. there are a number of elements. one is a new set of schools competitions, aimed at reaching a broader range of students. a second is a schools ambassador programme, with bank officials giving 200 talks in schools across the uk this year. we are on schedule to hit our target. the most ambitious part of our education strategy has been to develop classroom materials on the economy and financial system for use in schools as part of the curriculum for pupils aged 11 - 16. these go by the name econome.