Employees at Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of Barclays, have had their pay increased from £191,000 to £236,000.

This news comes after the bank insisted it had cut its bonus pool to comply with the Project Merlin Deal.

The Bank reported profits of £6bn for 2010 and the revenue it uses to pay its investment bankers rose to 43 per cent from 33 per cent.

Barclays is the first high street bank to publish 2010 figures and says that the profit of £6bn is a 32 per cent rise from 2009.

The average Barclays Capital Bonus has gone down from £104,000 to £124,000.

On March 11 a report will reveal the sum that Chief Executive of Barclays, Bob Diamond will recieve as his bonus and whether he will accept it.

There is speculation that his bonus will be around the £8m mark.

Barclays has played a key role in the Merlin talks to lend £190bn to businesses and cut bonuses, and said that bonuses awarded for 2010 were lower than 2009.

Despite Barclays' efforts with Project Merlin, Unions have voiced their anger over bonuses.

Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary, said: "The Barclays decision to award these mammoth bonuses for their top bankers is shameful. 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. These excessive rewards widen the gap between those at the top and ordinary workers struggling to pay their bills."

According to Diamond, pay at Barclays Capital is getting "unequivocally" lower each year.

If only bonuses and salaries are included, total "compensation" per employee is down 9 per cent year-on-year and 12 per cent per head in the UK.

"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. In particular, our overall performance awards for 2010 have been directly influenced by the commitments that we have made under Project Merlin," said Diamond.

"In reaching our final decisions, we have had to balance carefully these obligations with our need to ensure that our decisions are commercial in a highly competitive global environment and with the requirements of our shareholders."

"We welcome the UK government's commitment to ensure that London remains a leading financial centre and the competitiveness of the financial firms based in the UK, in particular by ensuring those firms are able to compete on a level playing field."

Lending, an important part of the Merlin deal, has only gone up by one billion, from £35bn in 2009 to £36bn.

Barclays tried to assuage criticism by saying they payed taxes of £6.1bn, 2.8bn of which was in the UK.

In early trading in the FTSE in London this morning Barclays shares rose 2 per cent to 316.9p.