The man chosen by the Government to lead the turnaround of Northern Rock has revealed his four-point recovery plan for the troubled bank.

Ron Sandler, the former Lloyd's of London chief executive, spent his first day in the Rock's Newcastle upon Tyne offices, meeting executives and staff. Mr Sandler said that his first task would be to ensure that Northern Rock was “operating on sound principles”.

With Ann Godbehere, the former Swiss Re finance director, who will take over as chief financial officer, Mr Sandler will trawl through some of the arcane securitisations used by the Rock to fund its business.

He said that he would then ensure that the needs of the tripartite regulators - the Financial Services Authority, the Bank of England and the Treasury - were met. Next, he will install a new management team and “create a business that's profitable and can be returned to the private sector”.

Northern Rock appointed Stephen Hester, the former finance director of Abbey, as its non-executive deputy chairman. Tom Scholar, who is Gordon Brown's former principal private secretary, and Philip Remnant, chairman of the Shareholder Executive, a body created by the Government in 2003, will also join the bank's board.

Mr Sandler said that he had spoken to all of the Rock's existing directors. “Some will go and some will stay,” he said. Mr Sandler will remain as executive chairman until a new management team is selected and the bank is on the road to recovery, and then he will step back into a non-executive chairman role. At that time his £90,000-a-month flat rate will change to a performance-related payment plan, he said.

Unite, the union that is the Labour Party's biggest donor, sought a guarantee from Mr Sandler yesterday that the Rock's 6,000 workers would not face redundancy. However, he refused to discuss staff cuts. He said: “I'm not going to get drawn into a conversation about job losses. You've got to give me time to get to know the bank.”

The Treasury is thought to have approached Mr Sandler to take over a nationalised Rock soon after the bank got into difficulties last September. At the time Mr Sandler warned the Treasury that it would take him six months to turn the bank around - which the Treasury said was too long.

Mr Sandler said yesterday that it would be “some years” before Northern Rock had recovered sufficiently to be returned to the public sector. He said: “It is clearly unrealistic to be talking about months. We're clearly talking about some years.”

The Prime Minister insisted yesterday that Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, had made the “right decisions” in his five-month attempt to solve the bank's problems. He also said that London's reputation as a global financial centre had not been damaged by the Northern Rock crisis.

“I don't accept that London or Britain has been uniquely affected by world events,” Mr Brown said.

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