Ex-banker examines the NHS books

DEREK Wanless is a nice man. That is what everyone says about him. The person chosen by Chancellor Gordon Brown to conduct the most important piece of policy research commissioned by this Government - a report into the National Health Service, unveiled today ahead of the Budget - is friendly, affable and down to earth.

Barely known outside the City, he is best-known within it as the NatWest chief executive whose tenure culminated in the bank losing its independence. An undoubted academic, Wanless graduated from Cambridge with a double first in mathematics and joined NatWest more or less straight from university.

Now aged 54, he worked his way through the ranks and was catapulted into the role of chief executive in 1992. A combination of the Blue Arrow share scandal and the ferocity of the recession had forced the resignation of much of NatWest's senior management and Wanless took the top job before many people thought he was ready.

Throughout the 1990s, NatWest was routinely criticised for Byzantine bureaucracy and a consistent failure to deliver to customers or shareholders. In 1999, the group received an unsolicited bid from Bank of Scotland and the poor reputation of top management was thrown into sharp relief. Wanless resigned, following intense discussions with chairman Sir David Rowland, a man with a reputation for ruthlessness who had agreed to chair the bank only a few months previously.

NatWest was subsequently attacked by Royal Bank of Scotland and finally capitulated in early 2000. During the seven years in which the clearer was steered by Wanless, profits before bad debts rose just 10% from £2.2bn to £2.4bn.

City pundits observed when Wanless was given the NHS research job that there are many similarities between the old NatWest and the health service. NatWest was intensely bureaucratic and deluged with dissatisfied customers - so is the health service.

Wanless tried his best to move NatWest into the 21st century but he left the bank on a low note. In his research for the Chancellor, however, he was not responsible for putting the NHS right. His job was merely to look at trends and financial determinants.

He is a keen Newcastle United fan, and friends say the most excited they have seen him was when the club signed Alan Shearer. He was even offered the chairmanship but turned it down because he was chief executive of NatWest at the time. He kept a low profile after leaving the bank but popped up last year as the architect of Brown's health service report. He is also a skilled chess player. His talents with pawns and bishops may have come in useful during the Brown exercise.