James Leavesley - Conflicts of interest?

James Leavesley was apparently discussing the possibility of creating a Social Media solution for Birmingham County Sport Partnership "CSP" .  His contact at Birmingham CSP is/was a consultant called Michelle Stott.

This is a commercial solution designed to meet the needs of the CSP and James seemed to "win" the deal without too much trouble, which is always interesting when dealing with Government departments and the civil servant types, don't you agree?

The fact of the matter is that Michelle Stott's full name is Michelle Clare Stott-Leavesley  and she is (apparently) married to James Leavesley - check out their blog!..... Hmmmm.  Now, I wonder how James was apparently awarded the deal so easily.

Then we get to the fun bit - apart from the potential for a huge conflict of interest when a wife, acting on behalf of her client, can influence the awarding of a contract to her husband's company, as a supplier!!  

The other interesting angle is that James did this whilst acting for Inormas, but seems to have transferred the deal across to his new company CBJL Ltd Registered 07055592 at MILTON PLACE 30 TENBY STREET, BIRMINGHAM, B1 3EE, which is (coincidentally?) the same address that Michelle's company is registered at - I wonder if that's their home address!

So, James was going to get paid for bringing in the Social Media solution and Michelle was being paid, as a consultant, to select his company as the supplier - surely there's a conflict of interest there......?  What do you think?  In this period, he was presumably claiming salary from Inormas for the business generation activities and expenses for going to see his wife and he did so with (apparently) no intention of allowing Inormas to benefit financially from a deal they funded.  That sounds like it's verging on fraud.

Michelle is a Director of Sportoptima and here she is on the IOD Website and she also sits on the Board of IOD Young Directors Forum with her husband, James.  She also runs a company called NXO Strategic Marketing, although she doesn't seem to be a key member of the senior team.