John Gieve

Infobox Officeholder
honorific-prefix = Sir
name = John Gieve
honorific-suffix = KCB


imagesize =
small

caption =
order2 =
office2 = Member of the Monetary Policy Committee
term_start2 = January 2006
term_end2 =
governor2 = Mervyn King
birth_date = birth date and age|1950|2|20
alma_mater = New College, Oxford
profession = Economist

Sir (Edward) John Watson Gieve KCB (born 20 February 1950) is Deputy Governor for Financial Stability of the Bank of England and an "ex officio" member of the Monetary Policy Committee.

Education and life

John Gieve was educated at Charterhouse School and New College, Oxford (BA, PPE; MPhil, Philosophy). He joined the Civil Service in 1974 and has served in a number of departments. Privately Sir John Gieve is known as a keen cyclist, footballer and golfer. He is also a loyal supporter of Arsenal Football Club. He is married with two sons. In 1999 he was made a CB.

Permanent secretary at the Home Office

He was Permanent Secretary (officially titled the Permanent Under-Secretary of State) in the Home Office from 2001 to 2005. The Home Office, at the time, was responsible for law and order, including prisons and probation, police and MI5; and for immigration and nationality matters. It has both an administrative and a political head. The Permanent Secretary is a civil servant and is the administrative head of the department. He is in charge of the department’s administrative functions and its civil servants. The rank of Permanent Secretary is the second highest in the civil service. The political head is appointed by the Prime Minister and is referred to as the Home Secretary. During John Gieve’s period at the home office there were three Home secretaries; Jack Straw (2001), David Blunkett (2001- 2004) and Charles Clarke (2004 - 2006). Blunkett was obliged to resign from government after a scandal involving accusations of abuse of his official position and misuse of government funds.

On 31 January 2006 the UK National Audit Office [NAO] published a report, "Home Office: 2004-05 Resource Account" [http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/nao_reports/chronindex.asp?type=account] , which was highly critical of Home Office’s accounts during the period of Gieve's tenure. The NAO press release stated that “Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, reported to Parliament today that the Home Office had not maintained proper financial books and records for the financial year ending 31 March 2005. Sir John Bourn therefore concluded that, because the Home Office failed to deliver its accounts for audit by the statutory timetable, and because of the fundamental nature of the problems encountered, he could not reach an opinion on the truth and fairness of the Home Office’s accounts.”

In 2006 Charles Clarke was dismissed as Home Secretary and replaced by John Reid. Shortly after his appointment the new Home Secretary made a statement to Parliament in which he described the Home Office as "unfit for purpose".

Deputy Governor of the Bank of England

In January 2006, Sir John Gieve was appointed as the new "Deputy Governor for Financial Stability" of the Bank of England. The appointment was for a five year term and carried with it membership of the influential Monetary Policy Committee.

On 30 April 2006 the UK's "The Independent" newspaper [http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article360960.ece reported] that Gieve was being pressed to resign from the Bank of England because of financial mis-management at the Home Office during his period as Permanent Secretary, and his involvement in the released prisoners affair. It is not clear who was "pressing" for his resignation - just an assertion in a newspaper. There was concern that Gieve was not a city insider and that he did not have sufficient technical knowledge for the role.

On June 18th 2008 the Bank of England announced that Gieve would be stepping down early.

The new chancellor, Alistair Darling, announced that the Bank of England would, from now on, have formal and legal responsibility for financial stability and would also take charge of the process of managing any retail banks that go bust in order to protect depositors. These reforms had been advocated George Osborne, the Conservative shadow chancellor and by the Treasury Select Committee but had been dismissed by Gordon Brown's Labour Government. The reforms are being developed by the Bank, lead by Gieve, in partnership with the Government and FSA.

[ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/] [ [http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/news/2008/040.htm] .]

References