Quango chief joins RBS board

THE controversial former head of Scottish Enterprise has been appointed to the board of RBS, it was announced yesterday.

Lena Wilson was paid £205,000 a year by the taxpayerfunded quango, where she was chief executive for eight years before stepping down earlier this year. Miss Wilson, pictured, sparked controversy in 2012 after taking on a second £55,000-a-year role as a non-executive director of the industrial testing group Intertek.

It was reported that the one-day-amonth position at the FTSE 100-listed company involved Miss Wilson attending eight board meetings a year.

The move was called ‘insensitive’ at the time, amid fears that it would detract from her work with Scottish Enterprise.

A SENIOR executive who was blasted for wasting taxpayers’ money on luxury taxis has joined the board of state-owned lender Royal Bank of Scotland.

Lena Wilson stepped down as head of quango Scottish Enterprise earlier this year after blowing public funds on a limousine company while on a junket in New York.

The 53-year-old is set to join RBS as a non-executive director – eight years after the lender was rescued with £46bn from the state.

Wilson’s attitude was attacked earlier this year by Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie, who said: ‘Many people will be disgusted that the hierarchy of Scottish Enterprise thought it reasonable to be so profligate with taxpayers’ money.’

She will start at RBS at the beginning of January as part of a wider reshuffle, meaning there will be four women on the bank’s 14strong board.

The bank is 71.5pc taxpayerowned following its bailout.

Chairman Sir Howard Davies yesterday praised Wilson’s ‘strong public sector and commercial background’. Meanwhile RBS’s senior independent director Sir Sandy Crombie, the 68-year-old former boss of insurer Standard Life, is standing down after eight years. He will be replaced as senior director by Mark Seligman, 61, a former investment banker at Credit Suisse who joined the board earlier this year.

Fellow non-executive Robert Gillespie, 62, who used to work at SG Warburg bank, is taking charge of the committee which sets the pay of boss Ross McEwan, who earned £3.5m last year.

Wilson was heavily criticised over a trip to the US in April with SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon for what the Scottish government called a jobs-boosting exercise.

The quangocrat took five flights across America during the trip, four of which were business class, spending a total of £10,000 on air travel for herself and a colleague.

Along with an aide, Wilson racked up a £1,851 hotel bill, and spent £3,904 in total on cars. This included as much as £622 for a single day in San Francisco.

And another £1,301 was spent for a day in New York with Bermuda Limousine International, which calls itself the city’s ‘premier chauffeured limousine service’.

It included a £188 tip, which sources claim she was forced to pay because it was mandatory.

They added that her car bill was racked up because security rules required her to follow Mrs Sturgeon around in a separate car.

Wilson, who announced plans to quit Scottish Enterprise in July, also came in for criticism for holding a £69,000-a-year non-executive role with industrial testing company Intertek.

It comes as the Treasury prepares to sell its stake in Natwest owner RBS.

Ministers are hoping to begin selling the shares next year and intend to have sold stock worth £15bn by 2023.

They are not expecting to make back what was handed over by the taxpayer for its bailout.

RBS did not comment.