As chairman of Barclays, Marcus Agius may have had a hectic time with the credit crunch and the bank's fundraising to deal with, but the BBC annual report reveals that he has also been busy as the corporation's senior independent director. Working a minimum three days a week at Barclays, Mr Agius is also a trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens. He received £50,000 last year from the Beeb for attending 11 of its ordinary and two extraordinary board meetings and nine other committee meetings.

Mr Agius shared the board with fellow BBC non-executive directors including former Bupa boss Val Gooding , Mike Lynch , Autonomy chief, Rexam finance director David Robbie , BA general counsel Robert Webb and Samir Shah , chief executive of Juniper Communications, the programme maker.