The RIBA presidential candidates have turned on the organisation’s head office in the final week of canvassing before members are sent their ballot papers.

Candidates Andrew Hanson and Ruth Reed both said that the RIBA’s central office did too little to communicate to architects outside the capital.

Hanson, chair of RIBA London, said: “We just don’t do enough in the regions. We need to be delivering stuff locally through regional output. There are members who are way out of the loop.”

Reed, former president of the Royal Society of Welsh Architects, said: “It’s about communicating to the membership. If the RIBA did more to promote its brand to the regions, the regions would find it easier to promote good architecture to clients.”

A source based at the RIBA’s headquarters said: “People here haven’t been all that pleased by the candidates’ comments. I think ‘confusion and disbelief’ sums it up.”

Regional hustings have been taking place in Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle during the last week, and the two candidates are due to attend their final hustings in London on Thursday evening. The winner, who will become president in 2009, is due to be announced in August.