Hopes that woman can succeed Andrew Sentance on Bank of England&#39;s MPC

Vicky Pryce, former head of the government economic service is viewed by the City as an 'obvious, well qualified candidate'

The departure of Andrew Sentance from the Bank of England's monetary policy committee at the end of May offers an opportunity to end the all-male dominance of the rate-setting panel.

City economists believe there are several strong female candidates who could fill the role. They are Vicky Pryce, a former senior civil servant, Bridget Rosewell, the founder of several economics consultancies, and Lucrezia Reichlin, professor of economics at London Business School.

Only four women have served on the MPC since its creation in May 1997 when the Bank was made independent. "There is a pretty strong case for having a female with the appropriate background," said Philip Rush, UK economist at Nomura.

He noted that since Kate Barker left the committee last May ? the only external member to have been appointed for three terms, serving for nine years ? the MPC and the upper echelons of the Bank have been entirely male-dominated. The committee is made up of the Bank governor, two deputy governors and two executive directors, plus four external members appointed by the chancellor. The deadline for applications for the three-year post on the rate-setting committee is Monday. It is a part-time position, involving an average of three days a week, with a salary of �131,771 plus healthcare benefits. The successful candidate will be announced at the end of February.

At the time of Martin Weale's appointment last July, one of George Osborne's aides said he was disappointed that only four of the 38 applicants were women.

Pryce told the Guardian she was "definitely looking" at the job, saying "there should be a woman on the MPC to redress the balance". It is not an easy decision for her as she has only recently left public service to become senior managing director of finance consultancy FTI, but the idea of "influencing the shape of the UK economy and doing the right things to encourage growth" does appeal.

She was described by one City economist as an "obvious, well qualified candidate". Pryce, the former joint head of the government economic service and former chief economic adviser to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, is a member of Vince Cable's business advisory group. She is married to but separated from Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary.

Rosewell chairs Volterra Consulting and is chief economic adviser to the Greater London Authority, after serving as its chief economist.

Reichlin has a wealth of academic experience and has developed methods that are used in research on business cycles in most central banks, although she lacks business experience.

The MPC has been criticised for being blown off course by international developments and some say that whoever joins it should have a strong grasp on the global economy. A background in industry would also be helpful as the MPC is dominated by academics.

HSBC's chief European economist Janet Henry, who worked for the bank in Hong Kong during the Asian crisis, could be in the running for the job, along with Sheila Dow, emeritus professor at the University of Stirling and an adviser on monetary policy to the Treasury select committee. She has worked previously as an economist for the Bank of England and the government of Manitoba.Melanie Baker, UK economist at Morgan Stanley, is another potential candidate, though her former boss David Miles is a serving member on the MPC.

Among potential male candidates are John Llewellyn, a former chief of staff at the OECD and former chief economist at Lehman Brothers and Geoff Dicks, chief economist of Novus Capital Markets. Dicks was a founding member of the Office for Budget Responsibility and has worked at Royal Bank of Scotland. Llewellyn, described as a "grand old man of economics," spent almost ten years in academia, at the University of Cambridge, 17 years in international public service, at the OECD, and 14 years in the City, at Lehman. However, he has set up his own consultancy with his brother Preston and may not want any distractions.

The departure of Sentance, a "hawk" who voted to raise rates at every MPC meeting since last June, would change the dynamics on the committee, though, it is not expected to prevent a rate increase later in the year. Sentance was joined by Martin Weale in voting for a rate increase at the beginning of this month, and money markets are now pricing in a 50% chance of an increase at the MPC's May meeting.

Rush said: "Acute downside growth risks in the near term provide a substantial disincentive to raising rates and the medium term inflation outlook remains contained, but this will not always be the case. By August, we expect the case for beginning to remove stimulus to have become sufficiently convincing that the MPC will embark on that path, even though Andrew Sentance will no longer be pleading that case from within the MPC."

Julia Kollewe

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