Business groups providing hospitality get most government meetings, new analysis reveals

Business groups which provide the most corporate hospitality to government departments also get the most meetings with ministers and senior officials in those departments, according to a new report from Spotlight on Corruption.

Spotlight on Corruption reviewed government data on meetings, hospitality and secondments for six government departments principally responsible for making economic decisions in the five and half years from January 2019 under the previous government up to the election in June 2024, and the first three months of the new government. 

The ‘Levelling the Playing Field’ report found:

• Firms getting the most meetings with senior officials in the Treasury and Department for Business and Trade (DBT) provide some of the most hospitality to those departments. 

• Barclays and HSBC provided the first and second most hospitality to senior officials in the Treasury in the five and half years running up to the election, and held the third and first most meetings respectively with them. Between them, the two banks provided hospitality or attended meetings with senior officials or ministers in the Treasury on average 1.2 times a week.

• In DBT, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Oliver Wyman were in the top five hospitality givers to senior officials, and the top six firms getting the most meetings. Between them the three consultancy companies provided hospitality or attended meetings to senior officials or ministers in DBT on average once a week.

• In DESNZ, EDF was the second highest provider of hospitality to DESNZ ministers and had the most meetings with ministers in the department. Between meetings and hospitality, EDF provided hospitality or attended meetings to senior officials and ministers on average once a week.

• Senior officials in DBT had been accepting hospitality on average 3.8 times a week, the highest rate among the six departments and a rate that went up in the first three months of the Labour government to an average of 5.8 times a week. 

Special advisers who are subject to minimal transparency in their meetings are by far the largest target for corporate hospitality – 68% of all events-related hospitality provided in the five and a half years in the run up to the election went to these advisors.

We also found that public interest groups, such as charities and consumer groups, are being marginalised in engagement with ministers and senior officials across the six government departments:

• Just 1.8% of stakeholders getting meetings with senior officials and ministers in the Department of Business and Trade (DBT) were charities and consumer groups during the five and half years running up to the 2024 election – the worst record of those surveyed. 

• The Treasury – where just 2.3% of stakeholders that ministers and senior officials met with were charities and consumer groups, followed closely behind. The third worst performer was the Department for Energy and Net Zero (DESNZ), with 3.3% of stakeholders in meetings from these groups. All three departments also had very low engagement with academics, potentially depriving them of crucial expertise.

• The first three months of the new Labour government has seen an improvement across all of these Departments except the Treasury which saw a reversal. The proportion of charity and consumer group stakeholders meeting with senior officials and ministers in the Treasury dropped from 2.3% to 1.5% under the new government. 

Other findings from our report include:

• Industry groups dominate inward secondments to government departments with four financial firms that had among the most meetings with Treasury ministers – on average 1.5 to two meetings a month – each also having a secondee in the departments in the five and a half years up to the election. Two of these firms also provided the most hospitality.
• Despite being the main route for public engagement, consultations and calls for evidence at the Treasury are heavily dominated by industry, with over 50% of responses to consultations (where names were given) coming from industry groups.
• Government guidance on how senior officials should deal with corporate lobbying has not been updated since 1998 – over a quarter of a century – despite significant increases in corporate lobbying.
• Major transparency gaps exist. The meetings data we analysed presents just a snapshot of meetings declared, while meetings with party political donors and special advisors (except where the latter meet the media) are not declared at all.

Susan Hawley, Executive Director of Spotlight on Corruption and co-author of the report, said:

“Restoring public trust in the fairness of government decision-making is a crucial and urgent task. We are calling on the government to radically enhance lobbying transparency and strengthen the guardrails against policy capture. Transparency will not be enough on its own however. The government must look proactively at fostering more inclusive public policy making, including by requiring government departments to develop inclusive access policies and update guidance on policy capture.”