Your voice 2025: insights from the Bank of England’s outreach programmes

Introduction from the Citizens’ Panels chairs

The Bank’s Citizens’ Forum and Community Forum programmes offer first-hand accounts of how economic conditions impact communities up and down the UK. In our role as independent chairs of the Citizens’ Panels held in our areas, we had the pleasure of facilitating constructive exchanges between Bank representatives and participants. We also draw on our own experience and knowledge of local and regional issues from our day-to-day work in communities across the UK.

For the last seven years, the Citizens’ Forum has promoted two-way, constructive dialogue between the Bank and members of the UK public. Since the programme’s inception, the Bank has collated participants’ experiences to better understand economic trends, improve participants’ understanding of the Bank and its monetary and financial stability responsibilities, and inform policymaking. The panel events also act as a helpful barometer of public sentiment.

This report, written on behalf of the Citizens’ Panels chairs, adds further evidence to the themes covered in previous years and how these have evolved following the Covid pandemic and a period of relatively high inflation (2021–23). The Citizens’ Panels across this period actively asked participants about how they adapted to the cost of living and their views on the future of money (eg digital currencies, use of physical cash, and digital payments) but also heard about related topics such as jobs and pay, savings and debt, and housing and rent. We are grateful for participants’ enthusiasm, curiosity, and courage for sharing their personal stories with us and the Bank.

The Bank’s engagement with Community Forums, chaired by independent charity partners, has been equally insightful and wide-ranging. This has been another challenging period for UK charities, with growing demand for their services and limited resources. We thank the Bank’s Community Forum charity partners and participants for their valuable contributions to these informative discussions. We would particularly like to thank the Community Foundation Citizens’ Advice and the Leeds Financial Inclusion Group whose networks have helped us engage with organisations we would not have reached otherwise.

It is clear to the chairs that this remains a challenging time for many people. Although participants acknowledged that inflation had dropped from its peak of 11.1% in October 2022 and was now closer to the Bank’s 2% inflation target, they were emphatic that the prices of many essentials were, in their view, unsustainably high. One of the consistent threads throughout these outreach sessions was the bleak assessment for people’s futures and the UK economy because of the cost of living and high housing costs. We also heard evidence of the resilience of many communities in overcoming these challenges.

The chairs would like to thank the Bank for its continued support in organising and planning these outreach events, giving members of the public and dedicated charity organisations a platform to share their experiences to provide a more complete picture of economic conditions in the UK today.

Citizens’ Panels: a summary of themes

A total of 18 Citizens’ Panel events took place between March 2024 and February 2025 in all the English regions and devolved nations, attracting 469 participants in total. These events were largely in-person, although one virtual session was hosted to capture views from across the country.

The main themes that the chairs noted from these discussions are summarised below and build on what has been said about these themes in previous annual reports. Participants were particularly keen to underline the long-term repercussions on future generations and widening economic inequality.

1. Cost of living: Despite inflation returning closer to target from its peak of 11.1% in October 2022 and interest rates having fallen steadily over the year covered by this report, participants said they continued to struggle with rising living costs, eroding already stretched household budgets. The geopolitical situation created additional worries about inflation being brought to sustainable levels.
2. Jobs and pay: Participants spoke of their concerns about the state of the UK labour market and, in their view, stagnating wages, particularly for low earners. Younger participants were struggling to find meaningful work, while some participants spoke about delaying retirement or coming out of retirement to boost their finances.
3. Savings and debt: Some participants shared having to dip into their savings (where these were available) because of mounting financial pressures to support themselves and their dependents, while others have had to resort to credit cards and loans to cover everyday expenses.
4. Housing and rent: Higher housing costs have created acute financial challenges, eaten into savings, and exacerbated housing insecurity particularly for young, low-income, and vulnerable participants. Business owners have also struggled with rising commercial rents and business rates.
5. Future of money: Changing consumer habits and the impact of the pandemic continue to shape perceptions of how physical money and financial transactions will evolve in the years to come, with more people using digital payments. Knowledge of digital currencies was low, with some expressing scepticism about the need for them as they were unsure of the use case, security features, and privacy protections.

The map below shows the locations of the Citizens’ Panel events the Bank hosted between March 2024 and February 2025, and includes the names of senior Bank officials in attendance.

The Bank strives to ensure that its Citizens’ Panels hear from a demographically broad spectrum of voices. Despite limitations on ensuring these panels are truly representative of the UK population, the Bank liaises with community organisations to target and attract broader audiences, particularly underrepresented groups. A summary of the demographic data for attendees of the Citizens’ Panels held between March 2024 and February 2025 can be found in the appendix. In the year ahead, the Bank will explore ways of ensuring the Citizens’ Panels continue to attract a demographically broad range of people to share their experiences.

How the Bank uses insights from the Citizens’ Forum and Community Forums

The Bank employs a network of Agents across the UK who play an important role in helping policymakers understand what is going on in the economy. The Agents hold confidential conversations with business leaders about topics such as economic activity, employment and pay, investment intentions, and their experiences of accessing finance. Policymakers also regularly accompany the Agents on their company visits to hear first-hand from businesses.

In recent years, policymaker visits have expanded to include outreach events such as Citizens’ Panels and Community Forums. This is to help them get a broader perspective of how the economy is working in different parts of the UK (infographic below). At these events they hear from charities and the people they support, as well as workers, consumers, students, and pensioners. Insights from these conversations are summarised alongside the Agents’ latest findings in regular reports prepared for the Monetary Policy Committee ahead of each meeting to decide on the level of Bank Rate. A summary is also published.

The Bank’s responsibilities are clearly defined and limited. This is explained at the start of every outreach event. However, the Bank recognises that participants value the opportunity to talk about a broad range of issues affecting the economy and impacting them, including many that are beyond the Bank’s control. Several of these are of direct interest to the Bank’s policymakers because, for example, of the impact they may have on household, consumer, and business confidence. Where possible and relevant the Bank takes the opportunity to share these insights with other public authorities. This report is also an important way to highlight the issues that were raised to a broader audience.

Bank staff at all levels are encouraged to participate in its outreach events. This helps them to understand how its policies can impact communities. The Bank also uses participants’ feedback to get a general idea of public levels of understanding of the Bank and its work. This informs, alongside other sources, the development of the Bank’s external communications.

Citizens’ Panels themes

Cost of living

A focus of the Citizens’ Panels between March 2024 and February 2025 was participants’ experiences of the cost of living. Although participants recognised that inflation had slowed over this period in comparison to the peak in autumn 2022, many felt that the UK was transitioning to a higher-cost economy that felt unsustainable to many. Participants’ testimonies consistently cited the financial challenges that higher prices and progressively lower disposable incomes have created for UK living standards.

Participants shared experiences of their ongoing challenges to adjust to the higher price of food, housing, utility bills, and transport costs. As a result, people have tried to manage by switching suppliers, shopping around for alternative products/services, purchasing second-hand goods, and cutting spending where possible.

In extreme cases, some participants spoke about having to take out loans to pay exclusively for essentials. Others were consciously aware of the financially precarious position they would be in if emergency expenses arose. There were instances, such as in Cardiff (September 2024), where some participants described being reliant on charity shops and foodbanks – something they admitted they never thought they would have to do. Lower household budgets also meant that participants were less likely to spend on socialising and leisure compared to before the post-pandemic rise in inflation.

Across many of the panels, participants said it felt like retailers were exploiting customers. In Leeds (March 2024), for instance, participants expressed dismay at ‘shrinkflation’ (that is where higher prices are charged for smaller/lower quality products) as one of the ways retailers were taking advantage of customers.

There was mounting concern among participants about how the unstable geopolitical situation would further impact struggling households and the UK economy because of potential inflationary shocks.

Underlying these discussions was a pessimistic outlook for the UK economy, people’s livelihoods, and their prospects. Participants believed that policymakers underestimated the impact that inflation has had on households up and down the country. Drawing on their own experiences, participants lamented widening levels of inequality, the fall in overall living standards, and cuts to public services. Although these are sentiments that have been expressed in discussions since the Citizens’ Panels programme’s inception in 2018, the chairs observed that there was a general sense that the mood had become even gloomier in the last 12 months.

There was some discussion about the reliability and value of official measures of how the economy was performing. For example, many people felt that the consumer prices index (CPI) failed to accurately reflect the real experiences of inflation for many people. Some participants also questioned whether there were better measures of economic wellbeing beyond gross domestic product (GDP).

Jobs and pay

Participants’ discussions around the cost of living inevitably touched on jobs and pay. In these sessions, as with those during and after the pandemic, participants shared their concerns and personal experiences of precarious employment, zero-hour contracts, and the failure of wages to keep up with higher prices.

Although real wage growth in the economy as a whole increased over the year covered by this report, many participants felt that wages had stagnated for low earners.^{footnote [1]} Participants also observed that slower growth created labour market instability, with many in unsecure, low-paid jobs. Participants acknowledged that some industries, particularly independent retailers and hospitality, were suffering because of the unfavourable economic conditions which had a knock-on effect on job creation. In London (September 2024), business owners said that rising prices and lower consumer spending had adversely affected their businesses. Where people were in work, they often struggled to make ends meet because their salaries did not keep up with the rising cost of essentials despite inflation easing.

Young people were particularly affected because of the quality of entry-level jobs. In Bristol (September 2024), those already in employment explained that they were unlikely to move as they prioritised job security given the negative outlook for the economy. Other participants with childcare responsibilities described the challenges of financially juggling the rising cost of essentials and working to provide for their families. For example, in Liverpool (April 2024), one participant shared that his wife had to give up work to look after their young child to save on childcare costs. Across several of the sessions, participants spoke about people in work relying on food banks and other charity services, an issue they believed was widely prevalent, but rarely reported on.^{footnote [2]}

Older people also shared their experiences of the workplace and planning their retirements. In the virtual Citizens’ Panel (August 2024), two participants spoke about delaying retirement as they were unsure whether they could afford to do so with the present high cost of living. Another participant in Brighton (September 2024) had come out of retirement in 2021 and was balancing three zero-hour contract jobs to meet the rising cost of living. In Burnley (October 2024), some people spoke about reducing or stopping their pension contributions altogether to release money to cover everyday expenses which created further worries about future retirement. Some small business owners raised concerns about the impact of planned changes to employer National Insurance contributions, the National Living Wage (applicable for those aged 21 years old and over), and the National Minimum Wage (applicable for those aged between 18 and 20 years old) which took effect in April 2025. A number of these individuals were planning to cut jobs and/or limit wage increases to manage the higher costs.

Savings and debt

The inability to save and rising debt levels were repeated themes across panel events between March 2024 and February 2025.

Participants across the board said that the cost of living had made saving challenging, if not impossible. In some instances, participants said they were dipping into their savings to support themselves and dependents such as children and elderly parents despite some earning ‘comfortable’ salaries. Of those able to save, participants commented on the discrepancy between the rates on offer on savings accounts and the Bank Rate.

Many described their personal experiences and those of friends and family having to resort to using their overdrafts, credit cards, and loans to juggle the higher costs for food, housing, utilities, childcare, and transport. Participants were concerned about the financial anxiety mounting personal debt created, keeping them stuck in a cycle of indebtedness. In Cardiff (September 2024) participants shared that friends and family members had asked for monetary gifts for birthdays, Christmas, and other special occasions to pay off debts and cover everyday expenses.

Participants expressed worry about the prevalence of ‘buy now, pay later’ payment schemes that were too accessible and attractive in financially difficult times. In Leeds (March 2024), participants agreed that more financial education was needed to support people with managing their finances and debt. In particular, they called for more education on the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) and how different companies vary the rates they offer.

The lack of savings and the high cost of borrowing meant that participants were limiting their spending and delaying big purchases (eg home renovations, weddings, and holidays) to consolidate their financial situation until their circumstances improved. Many found the cycle of increasing costs, diminishing savings, and rising debts unsustainable, with negative consequences for households across the UK and the economy more generally, including long-term generational impacts.

Housing and rents

Citizens’ Panels between October 2024 and February 2025 asked participants to share their experiences of the UK housing market. Housing costs were attributed as one of the main drivers of the high cost of living. The chairs noted that there was a general sense that the housing market was broken in the UK. The rapid increase in prices for residential and commercial rents was considered unsustainable, with unmitigated and long-term consequences for people’s finances, livelihoods, health, and quality of life.

Participants felt that ever-increasing rents exacerbated existing financial difficulties, with some spending up to half their incomes on rent alone. Several participants shared their experiences of rental bidding wars, making a rental market already short in supply more acute. The high cost of housing did not just create financial hardship, it also created health issues, with participants reporting that their living situations and poor housing conditions were taking a toll on their physical and mental health. Those who owned their home, while grateful, spoke about the challenges of higher mortgage repayments following interest rate increases. This had forced them to cut their general spending and hold off big purchases.

Participants who owned businesses said that some commercial landlords were pushing out independent businesses and cutting profits. In Maidstone (September 2024), business owning participants said that rents were unaffordable, with landlords prioritising larger businesses and chains over independent businesses. They also noted that business rents increased by 50% which did not bode well for business profits.

Young participants were pessimistic about their chances of affording to rent and eventually buy a property because of rising housing costs and stagnating wages which made the income and household ratio less favourable. They felt that successive governments’ attempts to correct housing supply issues were doing little to alleviate or indeed address the causes of higher housing costs.

All participants recognised that decent housing was a prerequisite for wellbeing, although the chairs heard that a lack of housing policy vision, housebuilder speculation, and unscrupulous landlords created a supply shortage to the detriment of social wellbeing and the economy. It was clear from discussions that the high cost of affordable housing and rents would have long-term generational and demographic impacts.

Future of money

As part of this set of Citizens’ Panels, participants’ views were actively sought on the future of money, digital currencies, and payment preferences between March and September 2024.

The findings from these recent panels show that the trend in the rising use of digital payments persists following the pandemic. That said, physical cash was still used for making small purchases from local shops, paying tradespeople, and tipping. Participants overall agreed that there were clear benefits to using digital payments: the convenience, the security of not having physical money, and the ability to save and invest money (where possible) through banking apps.

Although businesses welcomed the move to digital payments and had adjusted to accommodating this, many felt that the payment charges were unfairly high despite advances in technology and the wide-spread use of digital payments.

Participants highlighted that the closure of physical bank branches and cash machines had a disproportionate impact on rural communities, older people, and vulnerable groups who are still reliant on physical money for making payments and managing their finances. In Middlesborough (September 2024), some smaller businesses have returned to using cash, while others accepted digital payments exclusively.

Participants recognised the growing use of digital payments but also acknowledged the issues this created, such as excluding older or vulnerable people who were not familiar with using digital payments technology and privacy issues. There was general agreement too that if the UK was to operate an entirely cashless payments system, there would need to be more robust infrastructure, security controls against cybercrime, and adequate supervision.

On occasions where discussion of digital currencies arose, participants were not familiar with the concept, how these operated or what the use case justification was. For those who did have some familiarity, there was scepticism about the security of payments and regulating the infrastructure supporting digital currencies.

Citizens’ Panels feedback

The Bank continues to strive to attract the widest range of voices and routinely reviews the Citizens’ Panel post-event feedback to gauge levels of public understanding, sentiment towards the Bank, and satisfaction with the events. Between March 2024 and February 2025, the Bank received 393 responses to its feedback survey and the results are summarised in charts below. Overall, feedback was positive, with a majority of participants saying the event increased their knowledge of the Bank and the economy (Charts 1 and 3). 95% of feedback survey respondents said that the events were interesting and relevant to their work/life (Chart 4), while the identical proportion said that the event encouraged an open discussion (Chart 5).

Views were also sought on the reasons why people chose to attend, with many saying they wanted to share their personal struggles with the Bank, had an interest in economics or had a general curiosity about the events. When asked about what participants learned during these sessions, many said they were struck by the wide-ranging impacts of the economy on people across the country and the Bank’s extensive, UK-wide outreach initiatives to better understand the lived experiences of the economy.

Community Forums themes

Increasing demand for services

The Bank’s engagement with the third sector through Community Forums remains a valuable source of intelligence about the experiences of underrepresented groups to improve understanding of economic conditions that go beyond statistical data. Across the Community Forums between March 2024 and February 2025, the messages about the challenges for the third sector and their service users were unequivocally stark because of the cumulative effects of the pandemic and high inflation on communities across the UK.

There has been an overwhelming increase in demand for charity services over the year covered by this report which was attributed by participants to the financial hardships that rising living costs and cuts to local services and funding have created. Charities reported a noticeable increase in demand for mental health support linked to financial difficulties. The cost of food, housing, and utilities has had a disproportionately larger impact on fixed or low-income service users, pushing many into debt. Those on fixed incomes were particularly affected, with pensions and Universal Credit payments unable to keep up with the rising cost of essentials.

Financial difficulties were pushing many households into debt, with some service users turning to credit cards and loans to make up the shortfall in day-to-day spending on essentials. In extreme cases, some families had to make the stark decision between feeding their families and heating their homes during the colder months. As a result of rising costs, food bank demand remains elevated as families have struggled to afford essentials. In response to rising costs, households have tried to cut spending although charities said that this restraint has led to adverse consequences, namely hygiene poverty and malnutrition in children and young people.

There was a consensus among the charities that the Bank spoke to that more needs to be done to support struggling communities, particularly with financial advice, financial education, and employment to build confidence, resilience, and financial security. The constant thread throughout these discussions was the growing deterioration in living standards and a generation blighted by poverty, with significant social, economic, and health implications.

Social housing

Charities identified the lack of social housing stock as a major issue facing service users, with long waiting lists for homes, poor living conditions for those in private or social housing, and the risk of being made homeless. This had profound implications for people’s wellbeing, housing security, anxiety, and ability to build a meaningful life and career. It was felt that service users with disabilities or deemed vulnerable were unfairly penalised as welfare payments did not fully take into consideration their specific healthcare and housing needs (eg high energy consumption because of medical equipment and transportation costs).

Operational challenges

Cost challenges, staff retention issues, and an increased workload have meant that charities have had to contend with some challenging circumstances to continue supporting their communities.

The high cost of living’s impact has had multiple impacts on the charity sector:

1. Lack of long-term funding and grants, in addition to the higher cost of living, has placed charities, in financially precarious positions where they are unable to plan and provide consistent services to a growing number of service users with complex needs;
2. Shortfalls in corporate and personal charitable donations – dubbed the ‘cost of giving crisis’ – has impacted charities’ finances negatively;
3. Rising operational costs have impacted charities’ finances considerably; and
4. Issues with recruiting and retaining staff because of the high cost of living and changes to employer National Insurance contributions for low-paid and part-time workers.

These funding, operational, and recruitment challenges have meant charities have struggled to stay afloat. In some instances, some have had to eat further into their reserves to fund their running costs or have had to close their doors such is the severity of the situation. Where they have managed to survive, charities are having to contend with ever increasing workloads and complex demands of service users since the pandemic which they are not always equipped to deal with. Some charities said they were already planning either job cuts or pay freezes to tackle the financial challenges ahead.

According to charity participants the level of hardship is unprecedented in recent times, with evidence from the Community Forums chiming with the themes that Citizens’ Panels participants have spoken about, although the messages are more stark given their work with underrepresented and marginalised groups. Charities pointed to the families across the UK facing the prospect of poverty as the high cost of living, cuts to vital funding, shortage of social housing, and the deterioration in public services become more pronounced. Charities fear that the growing inequality will have disastrous implications for UK society and the economy overall.

Conclusion and how to get involved

Although the period of high inflation seen in 2021–23 has ended, participants in the Bank’s outreach programmes have made clear to the Citizens’ Panels chairs that economic conditions remain very challenging for some UK households. Prices of many household essentials remain stubbornly high and some bills continue to rise much faster than the official rate of inflation. It is little surprise that many participants said their disposable income had been squeezed and had cut back their spending as a result. Although the UK labour market has proved remarkably resilient over recent years with employment levels remaining high, participants continue to raise concerns about the quality and security of jobs and rates of pay relative to living costs. The overwhelmingly negative sentiment about the state of the economy was consistent throughout the year covered by this report and across all of the regions visited. However, the acute sense of crisis affecting the most vulnerable groups in society was articulated most clearly at Community Forum events organised with the Bank’s charity partners.

The findings of this report show that the impacts of high inflation have been widely felt across the UK. As with previous annual reports, the cost of living has had serious repercussions for every aspect of people’s lives from their finances, livelihoods, standard of living, and wellbeing. This report shows that the cumulative social and economic effects of the pandemic and a period of high inflation has had long-term impacts, with serious generational implications.

It is, therefore, essential that organisations like the Bank continue to engage with members of the public, community leaders, and the charity sector to monitor how the themes set out in this report evolve in the months and years ahead. These outreach activities provide a more accurate picture of social and economic conditions by hearing directly from communities affected and enables policymakers to draw on a broader evidence base to inform policy decision making.

In addition to another series of engaging discussions across outreach events that kicked off in March 2025 and as part of efforts to improve the quality of its outreach initiatives, the Bank has commissioned an independent review of the Citizens’ Forum programme to take stock of its achievements and identify potential areas for improvement, such as attracting a broader demographic base, to maximise the experience for participants and the insights that are captured. The review is expected to conclude this year, details of which will be published in due course.

The Bank’s extensive outreach programme shows a commitment to hearing directly about people’s experiences of the economy and will continue to do so, giving a platform to these voices and proactively working to share these insights with other public institutions in the year ahead.

To take part in one of our outreach events, please visit the Bank’s outreach webpage and sign up by emailing outreach@bankofengland.co.uk.