The public has been losing confidence in the Bank of England’s (BoE) approach to inflation for the last three quarters, a new survey carried out by the bank shows.

When asked if they were satisfied or dissatisfied “with the way the BoE is doing its job to set interest rates in order to control inflation,” the net satisfaction balance came to 14%.

This is down from 24% in May and 18% in August.

The total (i.e. not the net balance figure) of those dissatisfied moved from a net balance of 13% to 15% to 19% during the same time frame

Since inflation has started to rise since the summer of this year, the BoE has echoed America’s Federal Reserve in describing this as being ‘transitory’.

At the start of December, however, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell told US lawmakers, “it’s probably a good time to retire that word and try to explain more clearly what we mean.”

Since then, the Bank of Canada has stopped using the same adjective.

In mid-October, BoE governor Andrew Bailey waned UK central bankers would have to move to curb rising inflation, suggesting that base rate could soon increase.

However, the BoE kept the base rate at its historic low of 0.10% in the last Monetary Policy Committee meeting at the start of November.

The bank’s survey also showed a net balance of 55% believing interest rates will rise over the next 12 months, up from 30% in May and 35% in August.

In total (again, not the net balance figure), 5% of respondents replied that rates would fall, with the preceding responses being 9% and 8%.

And a total of 21% said that rates would likely stay the same, with 37% saying so in May and 31% in August.