More issues with Arcuri
amp.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/01/revealed-jennifer-arcuri-got-visa-from-scheme-run-by-former-johnson-official?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard&__twitter_impression=true
Revealed: Jennifer Arcuri got visa from scheme run by former Johnson official
Exclusive: Whistleblower tells of links between Paola Cuneo, PM and US businesswoman
A Whitehall official who ran the scheme that granted Jennifer Arcuri a coveted entrepreneur visa had worked for Boris Johnson when he was mayor, the Guardian has learned.
The US businesswoman, who is at the centre of a conflict of interest row over her friendship with the prime minister, beat nearly 2,000 applicants to gain one of 200 sought-after tier 1 entrepreneur visas on the government’s Sirius programme after Johnson helped promote her firm, Innotech, by giving keynote speeches at her events.
The Guardian has learned that Paola Cuneo, the then director of the Sirius programme, previously spent two-and-a-half years working in a senior post at London & Partners (L&P), the official mayoral promotional agency which Johnson had responsibility for while he was in City Hall.
Cuneo, Arcuri and Johnson attended the same Innotech event in October 2013, two months before the company joined the Sirius scheme.
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The latest twist follows revelations that firms run by the entrepreneur – who is said to have confided in friends she was having an affair with Johnson – received £126,000 of public money. About £11,500 of that figure was paid by L&P to Innotech while Johnson was mayor and after Cuneo left the agency. Arcuri also went on three overseas trade missions led by Johnson, two of which she had initially been turned down for.
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According to evidence provided to the Guardian by a whistleblower, staff working on the Sirius programme warned Cuneo and other senior civil servants of a conflict of interest in June 2014 after Innotech was given £10,000 by the scheme to run a launch event for the programme the month before before without any tendering process.
Staff were concerned that the programme team failed to follow procurement rules and warned there was a conflict of interest with the Sirius scheme paying the startup because it was already a recipient of the visa scheme.
Speaking this week, the whistleblower accused Cuneo of showing favouritism towards Innotech and questioned the company’s suitability for a place on the programme given it was simply an events firm rather than developing a product.
The whistleblower, who worked on the Sirius scheme at the time, told the Guardian: “I regarded the two decisions about Innotech [on the visa and the subsequent launch event contract] as examples of favouritism.”
Innotech was the only company admitted in the first wave of Sirius startups that did not have a tech product, the whistleblower said.
“It was fundamentally an event company. In that sense, Innotech stood out compared to other startups in the programme, which had a much higher potential to scale up. Potential to scale was one of the criteria we adopted to evaluate applicants.
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“This is significant because admission to the Sirius programme involved a tier 1 entrepreneur visa, plus a grant of £12,000, plus additional support resources.”
The whistleblower said that after Innotech was admitted, Cuneo decided to give the firm an extra £10,000 to organise a launch event for the Sirius programme.
“Several members of the team raised concerns about that decision, because it seemed not to follow standard procurement rules and because there was a clear conflict of interest (as we had already funded this startup). There were concerns because those services were procured without opening up the tender to competition and because the invoicing seemed to be irregular. On top of that, we already had a supplier for event management, so this seemed like a duplication.”