The Bank of England bowed to pressure to undertake greater soul searching of its performance in the financial and economic crisis yesterday, 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.

BoE governor Sir Mervyn King welcomed this set of reviews.

This represents a significant climbdown by bank executives and non-executives, who had previously refused to undertake examination of policies, insisting that all necessary internal assessments had already taken place. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012