11 Following competitive tendering, we engaged the Financial Consultants, Promontory, to determine the reasonableness of:
■ The view that the credit quality of Northern Rock's closest comparators was affected by the run on retail deposits in September 2007, making intervention by the Treasury to protect financial stability a necessity;
■ After the Bank of England support and Treasury guarantee arrangements had been put in place, the assumptions made to quantify the potential risks to the taxpayer if Northern Rock was placed in administration or a solvent wind down;
■ The assumptions surrounding the estimate of the public subsidy required if the Treasury had accepted one of the two final bids for the company or taken it into public ownership;
■ The amount of "due diligence" undertaken by the Treasury before the decision to take the company into public ownership was made;
■ The projections used by Northern Rock in putting together its business plan for the period it is expected to remain in public ownership.
12 In meeting their remit, Promontory reviewed Treasury submissions and advisers' documents, but also took into account external sources of pertinent data.