Royal London Asset Management said it had been “privately raising concerns about Capita’s weak governance for a number of years” and had repeatedly voted against pay deals.

Shares in Capita crashed 55% last week after its new chief executive Jon Lewis said it would need a £700m rights issue, suspended its dividend and launched a fire sale of assets. Lewis, the former chief executive of oil services company Amec Foster Wheeler, plans to simplify the outsourcing behemoth, which has contracts ranging from army recruitment to Tesco Bank’s call centres.

The broadside by Royal London, a 0.4% shareholder, said the new board must “ensure that Capita does not repeat the mistakes of the past”. Royal London’s corporate governance chief, Ashley Hamilton Claxton, said: “Until recently, Capita’s board flouted one of the basic rules of the corporate governance code, with a small board primarily comprised of management insiders. The result was a board that lacked the independent spirit to rigorously assess whether the company was making the right long-term decisions.”