More on the LibDem Away Day

In March 2007 the Liberal Democrats had a parliamentary away day at the Henley Management College. The two day seminar, led by Henley's chief executive Chris Bones, was packed with sessions on polling, messaging, the manifesto and, most interestingly, "balanced parliament options". Between 50 and 100 LibDem MPs and Peers attended.

Questions are now being asked at Henley about the level of subsidy they enjoyed, courtesy of the LibDem supporting Chief Executive. Mr Bones has previously been a donor to Ming Campbell's leadership campaign and was appointed in January by Nick Clegg to carry out a root and branch review into the Party's activities and structures. Quite how he finds the time away from his £200k a year job is beyong the ken of many of his colleagues, who are growing uncomfortable with the Centre being used for party political purposes. Henley has been used on four separate occasions (20/21 July 2006, 9/10 November 2006, 8/9 March 2007 and 15/16 June 2007) by senior LibDems for these sort of away days, and on at least one occasion, a commercial client was 'bumped' in their favour, according to a Henley source. This is all the more puzzling considering the Centre's less than brilliant financial position.

Some senior managers at the Centre are also asking if the Centre's governors have approved the involvement of Mr Bones in the Reform Commission, how much time he is devoting to it and whether the Centre is being compensated for his time.

The PowerPoint presentation used in the Henley sessions is a substantial document of 50 pages and fully branded by Henley. So if Bones did this in his private capacity why is it branded ‘Henley’?. As it is branded 'Henley' it seems likely that Henley wish to be associated with it and that the College is claiming ownership of the work.

It is also puzzling that none of this munificence on behalf of Henley has been declared by the LibDems to the Electoral Commission, or by any MP to the Registrar of Members' Interests. It is entirely possible that they paid the full commercial rate, of course, in which case no declaration would be needed.

But of far more interest is the 50 slide Powerpoint presentation given to the assembled LibDems in March 2007, as it gives the lie to their public pronouncements that they have no interest in a coalition. It is also clear that at that time the preference was to ally themselves with Labour - well, according to Mr Bones who was the author of the presentation. In this slide he comes to the conclusion that the next election is 55% likely to be won by Labour, with a 40% chance of no party having an overall majority. Remember, this was done a year ago, four months before Brown took over the Premiership.

And these were the instructions given to those attending on what they should say about the possibility of a hung parliament.

UPDATE: Thursday 4pm: I've had a very nice email from Henley asking me to clarify a few things. I'm happy to do so.

Professor Stephen Lee, Henley Management College's Secretary, reports direct to Henley's Court of Governors and is responsible for the governance of the institution and the protection of the integrity of its charitable status.

Professor Lee can confirm that:

· Henley's Principal, Chris Bones, played no part in any commercial negotiations with the Liberal Democrat party.

· No other client was 'bumped' or had their agreed letting arrangements affected by a commercial letting to the Liberal Democrats in any way.

· Henley Management College's charitable status requires it, when not engaged in primary charitable object activity, to seek always to maximise the resources available to the beneficiaries of the charity. Thus Henley has standard procedures for commercial letting clients that require its staff, in all cases, to confirm to industry procedures designed to assure competitive letting practices. On each occasion Henley dealt with the Liberal Democrat party these procedures have been properly followed.

· On each occasion our negotiation with this particular client has achieved a highly competitive arrangement that more than achieves our requirements as a charitable organisation. In each case the Liberal Democrats, by comparison with our own overall lettings performance and industry norms, paid in excess of our average or mode overall lettings performance. In fact, the Liberal Democrat party was the highest paying customer on each occasion.

· The Principal, like all other members of staff records his holidays and these correlate with the days the reform commission has met. It is clear that he continues to do his volunteering in his own time, not that paid by the College.

· As a globally recognized centre of excellence for thought leadership in management thinking Henley Management College welcomes the use of its facilities by all political parties. Many members of our academic community interface all the time with each of the political parties - this is an active part of their role as academic 'thought leaders' in the area of management education and on key issues of the day facing managers - reputation, risk management, political funding and fundraising, sustainability, customer relationship management etc.

· All College clients are entitled to use College administrative facilities which are, of course, branded Henley. The presentation on your blog was created by attendees on a Henley machine - hence the template and is not the work of Mr Bones or any other member of the Henley staff.