Persimmon appoints Bank of England manager

The York-based firm said she will also join the company’s remuneration and nomination committees on April 1.

Since 2017, Ms Place has been the chief operating officer of the Bank of England with responsibility for the day to day management of the Bank including finance, technology, information and physical security, human resources, property, and procurement.

She has over 30 years of experience at the Bank of England, including leading teams in banking, statistics and regulation. Before her appointment as COO she was the Bank’s HR Director for three years.

Roger Devlin, chairman of Persimmon, said: “Jo is an outstanding talent and Persimmon will benefit from the great breadth of her management experience, in human resources in particular, in the course of her 30-year executive career at the Bank of England.

“Her knowledge and insights will be invaluable to the business as we continue to implement our programme of progressive change.”

Persimmon reported a 4 per cent fall in the number of homes built in 2019 as part of a plan to improve the quality of its houses rather than focus on volumes.

The housing giant made the decision to cut the number of completions after a scathing independent report found that it had placed quantity over quality.

The report said Persimmon’s focus was on building as many houses as possible whilst failing to ensure the homes were habitable for the long term.

Published in December and led by Stephanie Barwise QC, the report found Persimmon did not properly install fire barriers in homes.

The company was criticised for a series of failures and accused of focusing on achieving a five-star rating from the Home Builders Federation (HBF), rather than building high-quality and safe homes.