Challenge to the board

Disgraced bank bosses have enjoyed a little respite of late as public ire has focused instead on greedy MPs. But the actions of Sir Fred Goodwin and his ilk will be back in the spotlight later this year, when a trio of regulators and governance bodies publish their recommendations on what should be done to prevent another banking crisis.One of the areas they will focus on is the role of non-executive directors (Neds) – a group of often highly paid individuals who, as Peter Chambers, chief executive of Legal & General Investment Management told a Treasury select committee earlier this year, “were not effective in controlling the activities of the executive directors, otherwise we would not be where we are now”.