RBS reveals almost all top restructuring managers worked at GRG

Almost all senior employees at Royal Bank of Scotland’s current restructuring business worked at the bank’s notorious Global Restructuring Group before it was replaced, RBS has revealed to MPs.

The bank said 30 of 32 employees employed in restructuring at senior management level or above had worked at GRG and that three-quarters of restructuring’s total of 182 employees had worked at GRG.

RBS revealed the numbers in a follow-up submission following Chief Executive Ross McEwan’s appearance at the Treasury committee in January. At that meeting he told MPs that to his knowledge just two employees at senior manager grade or higher remained at RBS from GRG.

In its submission RBS said McEwan was referring to former members of GRG’s management committee, which had six members.

Nicky Morgan, the committee’s chair, said the figures cast doubt on how much the culture and behaviour at RBS’s restructuring arm had changed since GRG was replaced in 2013. GRG was meant to support troubled business customers but a series of revelations have shown mistreatment of small enterprises by employees putting profit ahead of their customers’ welfare.

Morgan said: “Mr McEwan has assured the committee that the culture at RBS restructuring is fundamentally different from that of GRG. The discovery that almost all the senior management in the new unit previously worked at GRG raises concerns that there has merely been a rebranding exercise.”

The GRG scandal has dogged RBS for more than five years after former customers accused the bank of driving them out of business in the period after the financial crisis. On 20 February the Treasury committee published a report into RBS’s behaviour that the bank had fought to suppress. It found “widespread inappropriate treatment” of distressed customers as GRG employees pursued fees and profit.

Morgan said she had asked McEwan to set out how training and objectives of employees had changed to address the “toxic culture” described in the report. She also expressed concern about the level of compensation payouts to GRG customers. RBS said £1m had been paid out in direct loss claims after it set aside up to £280m for consequential losses.

Morgan said: “The value of payouts so far for direct losses from GRG’s actions is surprisingly low. I have asked Mr McEwan to supply the committee with updated figures on complaints outcomes on a quarterly basis. Decisions on consequential loss must be subject to independent oversight. RBS shouldn’t be marking its own homework.”