FORMER bosses at the failed Halifax/Bank of Scotland face being banned from ever working in the UK financial services industry again after the long-awaited report into the Scottish bank’s collapse is published today.

Ex-bank chief executives Andy Hornby and James Crosby as well as past chairman Lord Stevenson could face formal prohibition proceedings.

Because it is seven years since the bank’s collapse the time-limit on imposing fines has passed, so a ban could be the only sanction left open to City of London watchdogs.

Thus far, only one former executive, Scots-born Peter Cummings, who ran the commercial arm of HBOS, has been formally investigated. Mr Cummings, from Dumbarton, was fined £500,000 and banned for life from working in the City.

HBOS was rescued by Lloyds in September 2008 but the enlarged bank needed a £20.5 billion taxpayer bailout just weeks later.

The 500-page report by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority was commissioned in 2012 but legal wrangling, involving so-called Maxwellisation, whereby those criticised in the report have had a right of reply, has delayed publication for an extra 12 months until today.

A separate 100-page document is due to be published alongside it by Andrew Green QC looking at why only Mr Cummings was formally investigated and fined.

The former City regulator, the Financial Services Authority, is also expected to come in for severe censure for its supervision of the bank in the run-up to its failure.

Auditors KPMG could come under fire too amid speculation the report will reveal HBOS directors leant on the firm to sign off lower bad loan write-offs in 2008 to ease concerns about its finances.

This could see former KPMG Chairman John Griffith-Jones come under fresh scrutiny, given his current role chairing the FCA.

HBOS, which was formed from the merger of Halifax and Bank of Scotland in 2001, expanded too rapidly and lent recklessly before the credit crunch and financial crisis struck.

In April 2013, a damning report by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards accused the trio of bankers who ran HBOS in the run-up to its dramatic collapse of a "colossal failure of management".

Their ''toxic'' misjudgments led to the bank's downfall at the height of the financial crisis, the influential commission of MPs and peers found.

Mr Crosby was stripped of his knighthood at his own request following the report, which said he was the "architect of the strategy that set the course for disaster".

He also gave up 30 per cent of his £580,000-a-year pension and stood down from roles at catering giant Compass and private equity firm Bridgepoint.

Mr Hornby is now chief operating officer of Gala Coral - which is being taken over by rival Ladbrokes to create a £2.3 billion gambling giant - which has been supportive of him and is once again expected to back its senior executive after the latest report.

SNP MP George Kerevan, who sits on the Commons Treasury Committee, said while today’s report was welcome it was a “gigantic case of closing the barn door after the horse has long gone”.

He said the Maxwellisation process had meant “due process against the former HBOS executives found wanting in the report has been put in jeopardy. The blame for this cock-up lies - not for the first time - with the regulators”.

The MP for East Lothian added: The only real reason to have the HBOS inquiry is to ensure we do not repeat the mistakes of the past. Unfortunately, I am not sure the report has been timely enough to ensure that. The Conservative Government has just abandoned a proposal to place a reverse burden of proof on senior bankers, which effectively would have placed a duty of care on executives not to behave in the manner seen at HBOS.

“I fear we are back where we started in 2008 as far as making individual bankers publicly accountable for their actions.”