The Bank of England said on Tuesday that it had appointed Barclays' chief UK economist, Simon Hayes, to head its economic forecasting team.
Hayes, who worked at the BoE for eight years before joining Barclays, will be responsible for drafting the central bank's quarterly economic forecasts and will report to BoE chief economist Spencer Dale.
No official start date has been set for Hayes, but the current incumbent, Robert Woods, is due to complete his secondment at the BoE and return to Britain's finance ministry in the spring of 2014, the BoE said.
The BoE's forecasts have come in for regular criticism from British politicians and some economists since the start of the financial crisis for not predicting the persistence of inflation and the weakness of growth - though many other forecasts have shown similar errors.
The BoE is due to publish its next set of quarterly forecasts on November 13. There is particular interest in its forecast for unemployment, as the central bank has pledged not to raise interest rates before the jobless rate falls to 7 percent - something it forecasts will take at least three years.
Source: Reuters
