Bean says QE best judged quarterly

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England's quantitative easing policy is best assessed on a quarterly basis, rather than tweaked month to month, Deputy Governor Charles Bean said in an interview published on Friday.

"It is natural for us to take stock over the orders of magnitude we might need to spend each quarter," Bean told the Nottingham Evening Post.

"In principle, we decide every month but in practice it does not make sense to fine-tune the amount we spend by a few billion here, a few billion there," he added.

The Bank shocked markets last week when it opted to scale back its weekly purchases of gilts rather than boost the 125 billion pound quantitative easing total to enable it to maintain its rate of purchases through to its August policy meeting.

Since then Bean said that the Bank had not intended to signal a pause in its QE policy.

(Reporting by David Milliken)