Bank of England concedes review of crisis The Bank of England bowed to pressure to undertake greater soul searching of its performance in the financial and economic crisis on Monday, launching three lessons-learnt reviews. The BoE's court of directors ordered three reviews, led by people who are not current employees, into the central bank's provision of emergency liquidity to failing banks in 2008 and 2009, the Bank's latest framework for providing liquidity and the Monetary Policy Committee's forecasting capability. The specific reviews will not seek to examine other areas, including concerns over the BoE's hierarchical structure, its work into financial stability before the crisis, a lack of internal challenge and weak oversight from the court itself. Sir David Lees, chairman of the court, said it was important for the BoE to learn from the past to improve the way it operates in the future. He pledged: "These reviews will be undertaken by leading experts and will focus on three key areas of the Bank's responsibilities." Sir Mervyn King, BoE governor, welcomed this set of reviews. Major changes to the operations of the Bank have already been made in the light of the financial crisis. These detailed, independent reviews will help to ensure that all the important lessons for the future have been learnt. The decision by the court represents a significant climbdown by BoE executives and non-executives, who had previously refused to undertake examination of policies, insisting that all necessary internal assessments had already taken place. As recently as January, Sir Mervyn told the Treasury select committee that "all the Bank's responsibilities were subject to internal reviews, and we published those reviews," but he recently softened his line in a BBC interview. The first review will examine the BoE's role as lender of last resort to the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS in 2008-09 and will be led by Ian Plenderleith, who had a long BoE career between 1965 and 2002, including a stint on the MPC. The second will look at the current framework for providing liquidity to banks led by Bill Winters, chief executive of Renshaw Bay, who also served on the government's Independent Commission on Banking last year. This review specifically excludes examining the BoE's response and governance in the initial stages of the financial crisis in 2007. The third review will examine the performance of the MPC's forecasts since 2008 and the analysis given to the MPC over this period. It will be led by David Stockton, former director of research and statistics at the US Federal Reserve, and will focus on whether the MPC's forecasting procedures allow the MPC to take full account of the relevant risks and uncertainties.