Brittain’s loss

Shortly after reading your report of the £2.8 million “golden hello” given to senior banker Alison Brittain on joining Bank of Scotland from Santander (Business, 28 September), I received Which? magazine, which includes a customer satisfaction survey of the 28 UK banks. Santander is comfortably bottom of the list, described “one you should avoid”.

Your report states that Ms Brittain’s award was “a replacement for the benefits she forfeited as a result of her resignation from the Santander Group”. Presumably these “benefits” (ie bonuses) relate to the fact Santander made £2.3 billion profit last year, since they patently cannot relate to improvement in service.

So, let me get this right. The economy is crippled and millions suffer financial loss because billions of pounds of public money are used to bail out banks.

The worst performing of these then decides to award more money in a year’s bonus than most people can hope to earn in their working lives, to a manager who must share responsibility for that bank’s outstandingly poor service. Madness!

Colin Weatherley

The Paddock

Gullane, East Lothian