A top watchdog today issued a fulsome apology to recently departed NatWest boss Dame Alison Rose over the Nigel Farage bank affair.
Rose stood down from the bank, still owned partly by the government, in a row about privacy breaches.
She told a BBC journalist that Farage was being “debanked” from NatWest owned Coutts with some confusion over whether this was a financialmatter or down to Farage’s politics.
Today the Information Commission’s Office clarified that its own inquiries centred on NatWest, not on the CEO, and that its earlier remarks should not have been made.
“Our comments gave the impression that we had investigated the actions of Alison Rose, the former CEO of Natwest Group,” the watchdog said in a statement. “This was incorrect. We confirm that we did not investigate Ms Rose’s actions, given that Natwest was the data controller under investigation."
“We accept that it would have been appropriate in the specific circumstances for us to have given Ms Rose an opportunity to comment on any findings in relation to her role and regret not doing so.”
That may help Rose as she fights to keep a pay-off worth at least £2.4 million. Farage called this potential deal a “sick joke”.
The ICO added: “Finally, we apologise to Ms Rose for suggesting that we had made a finding that she breached the UK GDPR in respect of Mr Farage when we had not investigated her. Our investigation did not find that Ms Rose breached data protection law and we regret that our statement gave the impression that she did.”
Rose was seen to have done a good job at NatWest, a bank still recovering from the financial crisis of 2007 and the gung-ho leadership of Fred Goodwin. He expanded Scotland at a frantic base. The bank was at one point, briefly, the biggest in the world.
