Barclays gives its bankers 20% bigger pay deal

Barclays was today accused of "making a mockery" of pledges to rein in bonuses by paying 20 per cent more to its investment bankers.

The 24,800 staff at the high street giant's investment banking arm Barclays Capital saw their average pay, bonus and other benefits rise by almost a fifth last year from £191,000 to £229,000.

The pay details came as Barclays revealed that its profits soared almost a third to £6.07 billion, higher than the City was expecting.

They were the first set of banking results since the industry signed an agreement with the Government over lending and pay, codenamed Project Merlin.

Unions reacted with fury, accusing the bank of "shameful" behaviour. TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: "Barclays have made a mockery of bonus restraint by giving staff a whopping 20 per cent increase.

"With ordinary workers facing the toughest squeeze in living standards for 90 years, it takes a special kind of arrogance to consider a pay rise 10 times the level of average settlements as 'restrained'. With Project Merlin now a proven sham, new measures are needed to tackle boardroom excess."

Len McCluskey, Unite General Secretary, said: "These bonuses undermine any claim by the Government that there is fair pay in banking.

"Those at the top of the big banks are paid more then 100 times the pay of those workers at the lowest level."

However, the bank insisted that the rise in pay last year was entirely due to "deferred" bonus awards over the previous three years becoming available for "collection" last year.

It said that bonuses awarded purely last year had fallen by 12 per cent to £2.6 billion. If the 1,600 extra staff at Barclays Capital last year are taken into account average bonuses are down from £125,000 to £104,000.

Chief executive Bob Diamond, who would not confirm reports that he has been awarded a bonus worth up to £9 million, said: "We are committed to demonstrating that we are both responsible in our compensation decisions and practices and that we take our regulatory obligations and UK government commitments seriously."

A spokesman for the bank said the £229,000 BarCap average was lower than at Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and several other leading global investment banks.

He said: "What Joe Public wants to know is Barclays Capital is paying smaller bonuses than it did in prior years? And the truth is that they are down by nearly a fifth."