Putting the “Public” in Public Institutions | Andy Haldane | TEDxGlasgow

Public institutions, such as the Bank of England, were created by the public for the public.

Yet public trust in, and understanding of, these public institutions has been eroded, including by the
financial crisis.

How are these deficits of trust and understanding among the public to be closed and the legitimacy of public institutions thereby restored?

One option is to give the public direct democratic control of public policy decisions, through referenda. That would come at a heavy cost. An alternative, Andy Haldane argues, is to put place a “deliberative democratic” process – an ongoing, two-way engagement between public institutions and the public they serve.

This would involve convening and consulting the general public on a systematic, regional basis – for example, through Citizens’ Panels – on the economy and economic policy.

These panels would be a means of harnessing the wisdom of crowds, of harvesting people’s lived experiences, to improve the setting of policy and the legitimacy of the public institutions setting it.

For the first time in its 324-year history, the Bank of England is about to do just that. Andrew G Haldane is the Chief Economist at the Bank of England. He is also Executive Director, Monetary Analysis, Research and Statistics. He is a member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee. He also has responsibility for research and statistics across the Bank. Andrew has an Honorary Doctorate from the Open University, is Honorary Professor at University of Nottingham, a Visiting Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, a member of Economic Council of Royal Economic Society, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and Member of Research and Policy Committee at NESTA. Andrew is the founder and Trustee of ‘Pro Bono Economics’, a charity which brokers economists into charitable projects and a Trustee of National Numeracy.

Andrew has written extensively on domestic and international monetary and financial policy issues and has published over 150 articles and four books. In 2014, TIME magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx