Susan Bor, told Recruiter: “’Direct’ is one of my biggest mantras, which is a move away from the use of third party suppliers for a significant chunk of our jobs, because we save the organisation millions.

“In some parts of these businesses it used to be that all that ever happened was the business would ring up their supplier down the road and get them to send a few CVs.

“We think we do a much better job, a cheaper job.

“It’s not that I don’t think there isn’t a place for agencies, but I do think we carry the brand and care more about people experiencing RBS affirmatively.”

Bor says she plans to end all use of agencies for the bank’s volume recruitment of branch and call centre staff. “I don’t think there should be any agency utilisation there.”

“We started 12 months ago and we will build on it this year,” she adds. Agency use has already fallen to around 40-50% of RBS jobs from 80-90%.

“Once we have our digital marketing set up, which we will have by July, the idea is we have a mega-size database that our recruiters search from, and hopefully that will drive more traffic directly into us.”

Bor says agencies will continue to have a role away from the bank’s volume recruitment, though even here she says the plan is to cut use by 10% a year.

For example, agencies would be used for front office or senior positions “where it is either too sensitive a role or where it is particularly niche, where the research capability would already be with that supplier and they already know the market, so the speed factor would come.”

“I want a small number of suppliers who really understand us rather than having millions everywhere.”