Boris Johnson’s former communications chief was warned he could be seen as offering “unfair” access to government, after a consultancy he set up shortly after leaving No 10 took on clients including the national lottery operator, Camelot, and the Premier League. Lee Cain incorporated a PR consultancy called Charlesbye in February, three months after leaving office. Official disclosures show that Acoba, the body that offers guidance to former ministers and civil servants seeking private sector work, rubber-stamped the plan and also said he could advise a series of commercial clients. While Acoba imposed conditions on Cain’s work that it said would mitigate the risk of any impropriety, a Labour MP said the advice given to the spin doctor when he sought guidance from the watchdog on the appointments demonstrated the need to strengthen its guidelines. Acoba rules forbid MPs and civil servants from lobbying for two years after leaving office. A Charlesbye spokesperson said: “Charlesbye has fully complied with the rules and regulations as laid out by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba).” Two of Charlesbye’s clients are subject to major regulatory and policy decisions. Camelot faces stiff opposition to win the next 10-year licence to operate the lottery, with the department for digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) expected to make a decision on the lucrative contract in February next year. Cain also sought guidance on accepting work for the Premier League, which is among the subjects of a review of football governance led by the former sports minister Tracey Crouch. The part-time role will include dispensing advice on communications, Acoba documents say, from responding to trending Twitter topics to long-term strategic messaging. Cain told Acoba he did not expect the job to involve contact with government. Acoba said Cain’s work at No 10, in a role that he left in November last year, did not involve working closely with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, which oversees football and the lottery. The committee also noted that he had left office eight months before seeking to work with Camelot and 10 months before the Premier League job. But Acoba imposed conditions on Cain, warning there was “a risk it could be perceived your network and influence might assist Camelot unfairly”. The committee made similar warnings about Cain’s general consultancy work, saying he “will have had sight of a wide range of information and policy that may provide an unfair advantage to a broad range of organisations; further, there are risks attached with his access to contacts within government”. Acoba told Cain it would be “inappropriate” for him to use contacts or knowledge gained in office to the advantage of his new clients. He was also ordered not to lobby the government or any of its arm’s length bodies for two years after he left his job, and to seek advice from Acoba before accepting any commissions. An independent committee on standards in public life recently recommended that Acoba be strengthened. It said the two-year moratorium on lobbying should be able to be extended to up to five years, and that any work for a lobbying firm should be included in the ban, rather than just a prohibition on direct lobbying. “Those working at the heart of government should not be taking on roles with private companies who could stand to benefit from insider knowledge,” said the Labour MP Nadia Whittome, who works in a care home alongside her role in parliament. “We must end the revolving door of special advisers, lobbyists and consultants, and that means that Acoba guidance must be much stricter.” The Acoba disclosures also reveal that Cain plans to work for Orcadian Energy, which drills for oil at four fields in the North Sea, and the Kurdistan regional government (KRG), which administers the oil-rich semi-autonomous region of northern Iraq. Acoba imposed similar conditions on the work and said Cain’s political career had not included work or given him access to information that might be of specific use to those clients. The disclosures state that Cain’s work for the KRG will be short term and involve “liaising with UK journalists and setting up interviews”.