Three independent non-executives at Northern Rock are poised to step down this week as Ron Sandler, the bank's executive chairman, unveils his new board of directors.

Michael Queen, a managing director at 3i Group who has been on the Rock board since 2005, will resign his position but will stay at the beleaguered bank for another three months to ensure a stable transition, sources said yesterday.

Paul Thompson, who led the management bid for Northern Rock, will also stand down, alongside Sir Ian Gibson, a non-executive director who was appointed to his role in 2002.

Bryan Sanderson, the chairman, will also leave the bank. Mr Sanderson, the former chairman of Standard Chartered, the international bank, and of BUPA, the health insurer, took over in October last year, after the resignation of Matt Ridley, the previous chairman.

The Times has learnt that Simon Laffin, a non-executive director who is a partner at CVC Capital, the private equity firm, will stay on as an independent director, alongside Laurie Adams, John Devaney and Dave Jones, the finance director. All four were named to the board in November 2007, after Mr Sanderson's appointment as chairman.

Ron Sandler is set to announce the resignations this week.

Mr Sandler previously appointed Tom Scholar, Gordon Brown's former chief of staff, to the Rock board. In addition, the Government has placed its own representative - Philip Remnant, chairman of the shareholder executive - to the board. Stephen Hester, the former finance director of Abbey, has been named as Rock's non-executive deputy chairman.

Mr Sandler said this week that he had spoken to all of 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. Then he will step 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.

Derek Simpson, the joint general secretary of Unite, will call today for a workforce representative to sit on the management board of the company. He will also demand that there are no compulsory redundancies and that employees' shares are protected. The warning comes amid fears that as many as half of Northern Rock's 6,000 jobs could be shed in a restructuring of the stricken bank.

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