Social Helium - Hot air or just pure "bulls**t"? Part 2

We heard this week that Michelle Stott-Leavesley (i.e. James Leavesley's wife) had an accident around Christmas and that it was "allegedly" the fault of this blog!

Apparently, she'd had sleepless nights worrying about all this information being in the public domain and the fatigue and stress caused the accident.  We were very sorry to hear this until we learned that the accident in question was actually whilst away skiing for Christmas(!!).

Now, I don't know about you, but sleepless nights aren't the most common cause of accidents whilst skiing.  They are usually caused by a conspiracy between gravity and slippery stuff under-foot.  Michelle is no virgin when it comes to skiing accidents, as their blog demonstrates.

We're glad you're OK, Michelle, and had such a great time skiing!  Perhaps you'll have returned in a frame of mind to authorise payment of the Birmingham County Sports Partnership invoice that is apparently hugely overdue.  You remember the one?  We previously highlighted it in the Conflict of Interest post a while back.

Now, when it comes to hot air, spin, waffle and downright bulls**t (to quote Calum Brannan) then this has to be a prime example.  Let's face it, when you're hurtling down a frozen mountain on two planks of wood, a bad night's sleep doesn't have much impact on your concentration.

If you're worried about embarrassing information being in the public domain, Michelle, then it's usually best not to do things you don't want people to know about, or to associate yourself with people who are likely to impact your reputation in a bad way!

Sleep well.

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.