Sir Fred Goodwin gets £16m RBS pension

Sir Fred Goodwin, the sacked and utterly disgraced former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, is to receive a pension of some £650,000 a year. This means, at the tender age of 50, he will receive £12,500 to toy around with every week until the end of his days, which some might consider a trifle excessive for someone who is considered largely responsible for RBS making a £28bn loss last year, the largest in UK corporate history.

Sir Fred, who earned the nickname 'Fred the Shred' due to his one-time penchant for slashing jobs, receives this bumper payout despite his insistence that he received no compensation for loss of office after the taxpayer stepped in to rescue the bank.

In fact, his existing pension pot was topped up to the tune of £8m after he was fired, bringing it to a total of £16m. The good news is that the revelation, which comes courtesy of the BBC's on-the-ball business editor Robert Peston, has prompted the Treasury, which manages taxpayers' bank stakes, to spring into action.

It said in a statement on Thursday night that it would be "vigorously pursuing with the new chairman [of RBS, Sir Philip Hampton] whether there is any scope for clawing back some or all of this pension entitlement" and has "a view to testing any potential for legal redress".

And RBS seems like-minded. A spokesman said the agreement was made with RBS's former management and that the bank was "taking further legal advice in respect of certain aspects of Sir Fred Goodwin's contractual arrangements." ·