Home Group defends £25,200 party conference bill

Published by Max Salsbury for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Central Government, Development

Home Group has defended spending £8,400 on sponsoring fringe events at each of this year's three main party conferences - a total bill of £25,200.

A Home Group spokesman explained that it was important for housing providers to attend party conferences to be able to speak to key political figures. He said: "It's very important for us as a sector to be in close contact with political figures. We are trying to make sure that we can still deliver post-2015."

Mark Henderson (pictured), the housing association's CEO, attended each of the three events. The group - which manages 55,000 homes across Britain - has a turnover of £300m.

At the Conservative party fringe event, Mr Henderson called for “fewer, larger and better” housing associations, and argued for more consolidation through mergers or development partnerships to secure debt and build more homes.

The talks were hosted by right-wing think tank Policy Exchange. The think tank's Alex Morton also attended each event.

Other housing providers to sponsor fringe events at the party conferences included Circle, Catalyst and Moat. A Moat spokesperson said: "In this instance, we won’t be providing the figure for the amount spent on our fringe events at party conferences.

"This year, there was an announcement on housing at all three main party conferences, and the sector’s profile was more present than ever before. We feel that a story publishing the amount of spend on the events which contributed to this profile-raising, would undermine the positive messages providers have been working hard to communicate around welfare reforms, homelessness, and the value we add."

Meanwhile, a spokesperson from Circle said that the cost of sponsoring events at all three conferences came to a total of £6,000. Circle explained: "We always think very carefully about whether or not we attend party conferences, and only ever attend when we have important messages to convey.

"When we need to influence on key areas on behalf of our residents, it is a great opportunity to reach a large number of key stakeholders in one place. We do always look to get the best value for money with our communications and are confident that we achieved this for our party conference events which cost us around £6k to sponsor."

Catalyst would not disclose the amount it spent on sponsoring the conference events. In a statement, a spokesman said: "Plans to provide homes were at the heart of all the political parties’ plans to reboot the British economy – and that is very much on the agenda of every housing association. That’s why we feel it is an appropriate use of a very small part of our promotional budget to work with these parties to try and find solutions to the housing crisis.

“At Catalyst, we strongly believe that listening to our residents and communicating their needs, of good quality housing and strong communities, to policy makers needs to be done to make sure these plans make it into reality. Party conference is one of the major opportunities in the year to sit down with politicians and other stakeholders to show what we, as a sector, can do.”

Home Group's fringe event at the Tory conference event featured the housing minister Mark Prisk, whilst the shadow housing minister Jack Dromey attended the Labour fringe event. MP Andrew Stunell spoke at the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton.

Policy Exchange has in the past been heavily critical of the way in which public money is spent. However in this instance a spokesperson for the think tank said: "We don’t comment on how other organisations choose to spend their money."