* BoE vote unanimously to keep policy unchanged
* Differences on scale of QE remain between Dale, Miles
* Analysts expect no further expansion, eventual wind-down
(Updates with details, comment)
By Sumeet Desai and Matt Falloon
LONDON, Dec 23 (Reuters) - All nine members of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee voted to keep interest rates at a record low of 0.5 percent and maintain the 200 billion pound asset buying programme in December, as expected.
Analysts do not expect any further expansion of the BoE's quantitative easing scheme -- pumping money into the economy by buying assets -- and are now looking for an indication of when the central bank might start to tighten monetary policy.
Britain is showing signs of recovery after a year and a half of recession and, although it is lagging behind other economies, policymakers expect a return to growth before the year is out.
Minutes of the BoE's Dec. 9-10 meeting, published on Wednesday, showed the MPC felt little had changed since November when they expanded quantitative easing, mostly targeted at buying British government bonds, by 25 billion pounds.
"While it seems likely that the MPC is nearing the end of its measures to support the economy, further action is certainly possible if the recovery disappoints," said Jonathan Loynes, an economist at Capital Economics. "Either way, any tightening of policy remains a long way off."
The MPC noted that it was difficult to identify with any certainty whether the economy had turned and said there had been both positive and negative developments.
"There were exceptional uncertainties over the outlook for inflation and activity growth which would only be resolved over time," the minutes said.
BOE SPLIT REMAINS
The November decision to increase QE had been split, with Chief Economist Spencer Dale favouring no expansion and external member David Miles wanting a 40 billion pound boost.
The December minutes said those who had sought a different outcome in November still thought "a slightly different scale of asset purchases could still be justified".
"But the lack of significant news on the month meant that the case for deviating from the programme of asset purchases announced in November was outweighed by the benefits of completing it as planned," the minutes said.
Sterling fell slightly after the publication of the vote.
On current plans, the QE programme is scheduled to be completed before the BoE publishes its next inflation forecasts in February.
Most analysts expect the scheme to be frozen at that month's meeting and for it to be eventually wound down, and interest rates to be raised, as the economy recovers.
A Reuters poll of 62 analysts this week showed a majority do not expect the BoE to raise rates until the fourth quarter of 2010 when they see them climbing to one percent.
"It's (the BoE minutes) still consistent with our view that they will finish QE at the end of January and won't do any more," said George Buckley, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank.
The MPC said there had been both good and bad economic developments over the month, with better-than-expected labour market data and an upward revision to third quarter GDP figures among the positives.
On the downside, money growth had been disappointing and the narrowing of the spread between gilt yields and overnight swap rates -- which the MPC had viewed as a positive response to QE -- had been partly reversed.
"The reasons for that were unclear, however, and it remained likely that the full impact of the asset purchase programme on the economy would be felt only with a lag," the minutes said. (Editing by Stephen Nisbet)