Bunhill: Bristol & West

I HAVE long maintained that building societies are some of the least democratic and most secretive institutions outside Freemasons Hall. You'd think that as mutuals, they might be accountable to the ordinary savers and borrowers who legally own them. Not so.

The Bristol & West - possibly the worst managed of the big societies - has had a disastrous few years, buying estate agencies that are now almost worthless, spending lavishly on absurdly high-tech branches, and lending heavily in the South just as house prices were collapsing.

Tony FitzSimons, the gung- ho pounds 195,000-a-year chief executive, abruptly left last week to the 'deep regret' of the board. He will continue to be a paid consultant. The B&W won't say if he is receiving a pay-off, or give details of the consultancy deal - both legitimate areas of interest for the society's one million members.

Perhaps one shouldn't be surprised. Its chairman is Lord Armstrong, the former civil servant who told an Australian court he had been 'economical with the truth' in the Spycatcher affair.

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