by Laura Chisholm on
February 1 2012
It’s hard to justify Fred Goodwin retaining an honour for services to banking when those services resulted in a direct cost to the taxpayer of £45 billion. Goodwin, the forfeiture committee points out, was the main decision maker at a time when disastrous decisions were taken. But if the Prime Minister was expecting unanimous applause from the media for the move then he will have been disappointed. Most commentators seem to agree with the end result but query the process, sensing inconsistency and political opportunism. Certainly it seems an uncomfortable co-incidence that this decision should be made now, 3 years after Goodwin’s resignation, when the political leaders are fighting to display their ethical capitalism credentials. Why has Goodwin been targeted and not the ex-jailbirds in the House of Lords? Well, we all know why – because Goodwin symbolises the excess that led to the crash from which we have yet to recover – but that doesn’t make it fair.
The decision feels vindictive because it is not clear that due process has been followed. This is a shame because we need more accountability in our political and business worlds. But we should not mistake accountability with the creation of scapegoats, however tempting this may be. Raking over the past to find more individuals to punish can’t be the answer. Instead we should accept that our system did not have the levers in place to hold our business leaders accountable and ensure that this is rectified. This is why the proposal to make CEOs subject to criminal gross negligence charges is worth serious consideration.