Banknotes Imagery Advisory Group Minutes – August 2025

Meeting held 5 August 2025

Published on
17 April 2026

Date: 5 August 2025

Time: 10am to 11.30am | Location: Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, London, EC2R 8AH and MS teams

Minutes

Item 1 – Welcome and introduction

The Chair opened the meeting, thanking members for their involvement and reiterated the importance of the decisions which the Group will be making.

The primary aims of this inaugural meeting were to review the preliminary results of the public consultation on the theme for the next series of banknotes, and agree the approach to using focus groups to provide more insights on public sentiment on banknote themes and imagery. The Chair thanked members for attending and confirmed that the Minutes of the Money Markets Committee (MMC) December 2025 meeting had been published on the Bank’s website.

Item 2 – Terms of reference

Decision: The group agreed to approve the draft Terms of Reference, subject to a clarification that members joining virtually would count towards Quorum.

Act: Secretariat to update Terms of Reference accordingly and recirculate for the record.

Item 3 – Theme selection process

Members considered the imagery selection process, including how it fits into the overall timeline for design of the next series of banknotes (Series H).

The public consultation on themes received broadly positive coverage across print, radio and broadcast, as well as engagement on social media. The level of public engagement around the consultation was very encouraging.

The Bank monitored response rates throughout the consultation period and conducted more targeted outreach in the final 3 weeks to reach underrepresented groups.

The Group discussed the criteria set out in the Consultation for choosing a theme, including the importance of considering the Bank’s public sector equality duty. Members were reminded to familiarise themselves with the Legal Directorate’s briefing, which set out that decision makers should have due regard to equality and diversity when considering banknote imagery. This duty will need to be considered regardless of the theme chosen for the next series of banknotes.

Members agreed that it is important for the Bank to consider how different themes and images may land with different groups.

The Group discussed how the potential themes may symbolise the UK, including people from different backgrounds as well as different regions across the four nations of the UK.

Item 4 – Insights from Public Consultation and other engagement

The Group considered the initial high-level analysis of the responses to the public consultation, including some of the differences across demographic groups and an initial review of the free-text responses.

In total, the Bank received over 43,000 responses across the online survey and via post/emails, with more than 100,000 votes across all 6 themes. Nature received the most votes, with Architecture and Landmarks close behind. Historic figures received the third highest proportion of votes, but notably behind the first 2 themes.

About 19,000 respondents also provided free text responses. Most of these were suggestions of specific images or comments on the composition and other aspects of design, rather than alternative theme suggestions.

The Group also considered findings from the Bank’s engagement with Citizens Forums, other stakeholders such as the Office for Equality & Opportunity (Cabinet Office) and the Banknotes of Colour campaign, as well as representatives from the Bank’s Employee Networks.

Members agreed that the Bank should consider the wider context when assessing the results e.g. where localised campaigns might have impacted on the outcome in particular regions or demographic groups. It should also consider whether there were groups who were proportionally underrepresented.

Item 5 – Approach to qualitative research/focus groups and next steps

The Bank is undertaking a tender to run focus groups to gather more insights on the most popular banknote themes, including exploring sentiment and potential images which reflect those themes.

Decision: The Group agreed that the focus groups should be used to:

Understand how the public perceives the two most popular themes (nature, and architecture and landmarks), including which sub-themes and images they identify most with within these themes.

Explore whether there are sufficient ways to celebrate diversity within the top themes.

Understand if the public is open to a combination of nature and architecture and landmarks being featured, and how this would impact their ease of use and accessibility

Understand the public’s appetite to changing other aspects of the design of the banknotes, e.g. the notes’ orientation (landscape vs portrait).

Members agreed BIAG should reconvene once the focus groups are completed, to decide which theme to recommend to the Governor. They also had an initial discussion on the factors to consider when shaping the approach to deciding which images would depict the chosen theme.

Act: Notes and Communications should develop potential options for the approach to image selection, for members to decide at the next Advisory Group meeting.

Attendees

Members

Victoria Cleland (Chair) Rhys Phillips - Governor’s Private Secretary Nick McLaren - Head of Future of Money Jen Small - Head of Notes Operations Katie Martin - Head of Stakeholder & Media Engagement PRA Senior Advisor

Apologies

Sebastian Walsh – Secretary to the Bank Senior Manager, Banknote Security & Design Senior Programme Manager, Banknote Innovation Programme Project Manager, Banknote Innovation Programme

Observers and presenters

Deputy Head of Legal Senior Manager, Banknote Analysis, Strategy & Engagement Private Secretary to the Chief Cashier Analyst, Advanced Analytics Lead Policy Analyst, Banknote Analysis, Strategy & Engagement

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