Barclays bosses will face more shareholder anger over pay during the banking giant's annual general meeting in London today .
It recently defied calls for restraint by hiking its staff bonus pool by 10% to £2.38 billion despite profits falling by a third and plans to cut thousands of jobs.
The AGM comes in the wake of a letter from Business Secretary Vince Cable to the UK's top 100 listed businesses warning them that persisting with high levels of executive pay would be a "dereliction of duty" and damage trust.
Barclays has already announced the appointment of a new director, Crawford Gillies, to chair its remuneration committee. He will succeed Sir John Sunderland at a date to be set.
Shareholder lobby group Pirc had recommended that its members oppose five resolutions at the AGM, including the remuneration report and the reappointment of Sir John.
Pirc is also unhappy that Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins will receive up to £1 million in share allowances on top of salary and bonuses to sidestep European rules to cap payouts.
The bank's pay policy has also been criticised by the Institute of Directors, which complained that the bonus pool for 2013 was nearly three times the £859 million paid out in dividends to shareholders.
But Mr Jenkins said recently that the level of pay was necessary in order to retain top talent in its investment banking arm.
Barclays announced the increase in its bonus pool in February despite a 32% drop in annual profits to £5.2 billion. It also confirmed plans to cut up to 12,000 jobs this year, including 7,000 this year, under plans to slash costs across the group.
Since then it has emerged that hundreds more jobs look set to go, mainly at its investment banking arm, after Barclays announces the results of a strategic review which will comes two days after the bank's next trading update in May.
Barclays has rejected the idea it was defying European rules on capping pay-outs and p ointed to investors who had been supportive of Mr Jenkins's strategy.
Richard Buxton, one of the City's top fund managers, who oversees billions of pounds at Old Mutual Global Investors told Sky News this week that he was supportive of the chief executive.
He said: " Our focus is on the progress being made to improve returns, notably within the investment bank.
"We are confident that much more will be achieved here, which will feed through to lower costs and lower compensation over time, albeit in an uneven fashion."
He added: "I'm confident that after further work on costs this year, the three-year average 2012-2014 numbers will show material moves in the right direction.
"The bank knows it has to improve the staff-to-shareholder reward ratio - but this is a multi-year journey."
