Northern Rock's chief financial officer, Ann Godbehere, is set to leave the state-owned bank in February after earning nearly £1 million for 12 month's work.

The bank announced today that Ms Godbehere will step down from Northern Rock's board next month, and leave the group in February.

Since joining 11 months ago when the Government nationalised Northern Rock, Ms Godbehere, the former finance director at Swiss Re, has been earning £75,000 a month, and will end her time at the bank with total pay of £900,000.

Ms Godbehere's pay deal, as well as the £3,000 a day negotiated by Ron Sandler, Northern Rock's non-executive chairman, caused outcry last year when details emerged after shareholders lost millions of pounds when the bank collapsed.

The Government nationalised Northern Rock after the mortgage lender was forced to seek around £26 billion in emergency funding from the Bank of England when its main means of raising capital, through the wholesale market, dried up.

The wholesale market is where banks lend money to each other. Since September 2007, the wholesale market has remained frozen because banks, who were scared about rivals' exposure to the sub-prime mortgage market, refused to lend money over fears the sums would not be repaid.

Northern Rock said today it is currency searching for a replacement for Ms Godbehere "but that process has not yet concluded".

Ms Godbehere's departure has emerged just days before former investors in Northern Rock take on the Government at the high court over its decision to nationalise the lender.

SRM Global and RAB Capital, which between them owned more than 20 per cent of Northern Rock, will challenge the Government on the terms that were used to compensate shareholders when it was nationalised.

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