THE part taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland has come under renewed pressure over executive pay after it emerged 95 staff were paid more than £1 million last year.

The Edinburgh institution, which was bailed out by the UK Government in 2008 and has been beset by an interest-rate rigging scandal and falling profits, also had one employee earning above £5m in 2012.

RBS, which is 81% owned by the Government, revealed total pay for its eight most senior executives was £21m, down 16% on 2011.

The development follows a difficult week for the bank, with Sir Mervyn King, the Bank of England governor, stating on Wednesday that RBS could not be sold off until it acknowledges the full scale of its bad debts. The bank is also planning to compensate thousands of RBS Group customers whose cards failed to work because of yet another hardware glitch.

The Unite union described the large numbers of high earners as completely unjustifiable. A spokeswoman said: "In the week where the governor of the Bank of England made clear the problems at RBS are worse than previously thought and the bank's cashpoints failed, what can possibly be the justification for these staggering rewards?

"Bank counter staff on £14,000 per year who, day-in, day-out, are attempting to restore RBS's tattered reputation will be extremely unhappy at the continued culture of high and unjustified rewards at the top of the bank, and the public will share their bewilderment and outrage.

"Promises to change the culture of elite banking in this country seem to be worthless. With taxpayers picking up the pieces at this bank, it is high time the Government realised its duty is to rein in these excessive, unwarranted rewards."

The bank's report showed that of the staff earning more than £1m, 36 earned £1.5m to £5m and one person earned even more.

Chief executive Stephen Hester did not receive an annual bonus for last year, although he was awarded £1.6m in deferred long-term bonus shares. Finance director Bruce Van Saun received a £980,000 bonus and long-term shares worth £1m, taking his total pay package to £2.7m.

Finance expert Prem Sikka, professor of accounting at Essex University, said: "The bank's main priority should be to build its capital base, given that they have been turning out losses, and one way to do that would be to cap pay for its senior executives. Mr Hester should be focused on building capital base, but this suggests he's not.

"The fact so many people are still earning massive salaries is not good for the bank or the taxpayers. They have to curb the big numbers they are paying the top executives."

Mr Sikka also said no executive was worth a salary of more than £5m.

Matthew Sinclair of the TaxPayers' Alliance added: "Taxpayers have seen the value of the investment in RBS fall by billions of pounds, so they'll be concerned to see such high packages for top executives.

"It's crucial the state-owned banks are returned to private hands as soon as is practically possible so that taxpayers aren't on the hook for huge pay bills."

RBS has been criticised for handing out £607m in bonuses in 2012 as it reported £5.2 billion in annual losses.

Last year, RBS was fined £381m for attempting to rig interbank lending rates, and also hit by mis-selling scandals and an IT meltdown in June last year which left millions of customers locked out of their accounts.

It was also revealed 204 employees at HSBC and 420 at Barclays were paid more than £1m.

l Peter Wood, who founded Direct Line insurance, underwritten by RBS, is expected to pocket £175m when his online venture esure floats on the stock market.

He once joked he had made RBS so much money a statue should be put up ouside its offices in St Andrew Square, Edinburgh.