Royal Bank of Scotland, which is 70 per cent-owned by the Government, has handed four of its senior executives share awards worth a total of £5 million at current prices, a month after unveiling a controversial £2.9 million scheme for its new head of global banking and markets.

Under the latest package, Ellen Alemany, the chief executive of RBS America, is in line to receive 5.9 million shares - worth £2.4million at present prices - if targets are met over the next three years. These targets have not been published yet.

As part of the same scheme, Ron Teerlink, the bank’s chief administration officer, and Chris Sullivan, the incoming head of the UK corporate banking division, are set to receive 1.9 million and 1.8 million shares, respectively. Alan Dickinson, the outgoing head of UK corporate banking, is in line to receive 1.9 million shares, in spite of the fact that it was announced this month that he is leaving his post in July and will retire next year.

The scheme is likely to ignite fresh anger about excessive pay in banks that came close to collapse and required public money to survive.

The scheme - details of which were contained in a Stock Exchange announcement released late last week - are contingent on performance targets being met over the next three years. However, Stephen Hester, RBS’s chief executive, will not reveal his strategic review - which will contain the bank’s new corporate and divisional business targets - until summer.

In a statement, RBS said: “We have put in place a new leadership team to lead RBS through the substantial restructuring we have under way. It is critical that executive reward is made dependent on the delivery of those plans over the next three to five years to align their interests directly with those of our shareholders. These incentives are designed to do just that and there will be no reward for failure. Nothing will be paid until and unless performance criteria are achieved and awards are subject to claw back.”

A spokesman for RBS said: “The [previous] scheme has not paid out since 2004 - because performance targets were not met.” Mr Dickinson’s share awards would be made “pro rata”, depending on his remaining length of service, the spokesman said.

RBS lost £24 billion last year and was bailed out by the Government in October. It has since attracted controversy over the pension entitlements of Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive. Last month, RBS disclosed that it had granted options over more than seven million shares to John Hourican, the head of its global banking and markets division.

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