When asked during questioning into the Co-op affair by a recent Treasury Select Committee how he was, in fact, up to the task, he answered: "I took the exam of the Institute of Bankers. I completed part one and the best part of part two of those exams before I became a Methodist minister. I would judge that experience is out of date in terms of the needs of contemporary banking."
That response begs more questions than it answers, especially as during the same grilling the Reverend Flowers was unable to accurately state the value of assets held on the bank's balance sheet (he said £3bn, more than 10-times less than the actual figure). It is an admission that the entry-level training he received whilst employed at the NatWest in the late 1960s was no longer relevant, and that essentially he had no banking experience at all. (That said, a lack of banking qualifications hasn't stopped many others from rising through the ranks of the industry, as the famous joke about Sir Terry Wogan and the men at the heart of the 2008 banking crisis suggests - Sir Terry, so the punchline goes, being the only one with a banking qualification).
Unsurprisingly, the Co-op Group boss who appointed Reverend Flowers has fallen on his sword, too. But surely the far bigger failing lies with the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which rubber stamped his elevation to chairman in 2010. Given the disaster that has befallen banks during the credit crunch, and the revelations that the industry had been stretched to breaking point, it seems incredible that the regulator could have taken its eye off the ball so soon after. Surely, at least, the FSA could have insisted that a refresher course be arranged, arguably a pre-requisite for someone trying to architect an enormous expansion of his banking operation, integrating the troubled Britannia and buying 631 bank branches from Lloyds? Contemporary banking is, after all, a rather complicated business, as even Reverend Flowers understood.
Luckily, the Co-op Bank's customers have not suffered any real fallout from this catalogue of errors - but that's only because those that invested in the Co-op's Pibs have been forced to bear the cost of recapitalising the bank. Thanks to the sterling efforts of Mark Taber, retail investors will get a better deal than initially proposed should they vote in favour this week. But they are being forced to accept a painful haircut nevertheless - and given the litany of failings would be forgiven for ultimately seeking an even fuller redress from those tasked with their protection.
