Communication with The Campaign for Fairer Gambling
Request
All communication including number of meetings (if at all) and all email communication up to present day between the Gambling Commission and:
- The Campaign for Fairer Gambling.
- Derek Webb.
Response
Thank you for your request which has been processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
In your email you have requested all communication including number of meetings (if at all) and all email communication up to present day between the Gambling Commission and:
- The Campaign for Fairer Gambling.
- Derek Webb.
In relation to part one of your request, The Gambling Commission can confirm that no information is held falling within the scope of your request.
In relation to part two of your request, the Data Protection Act 2018 requires personal data to be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject. It is the view of the Commission that confirming whether we do or do not hold information falling within the scope of your request would constitute the disclosure of personal data and would contravene this principle.
This information is therefore exempt under section 40(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Section 40(5B) provides that the duty to confirm or deny does not arise in relation to other information if or to the extent that any of the following applies—
(a) giving a member of the public the confirmation or denial that would have to be given to comply with section 1(1)(a)—
(i) would (apart from this Act) contravene any of the data protection principles.
It is the view of the Commission that confirming whether we do or do not hold information in relation to Derek Webb would constitute the disclosure of personal data and would not be fair and lawful.
If held, the requested information clearly both identifies, and relates to, the individual named in the request. Issuing a confirmation or a denial would reveal information which has this individual as its focus and would therefore reveal their personal data. There is no legitimate public interest in confirming or denying this information and it would not be fair to do so.
This information is therefore exempt under section 40(5) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Review of the decision
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your Freedom of Information request you are entitled to an internal review of our decision. You should write to FOI Team, Gambling Commission, 4th floor, Victoria Square House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B2 4BP or by reply to this email.
Please note, internal review requests should be made within 40 working days of the initial response. Requests made outside this timeframe will not be processed.
If you are not content with the outcome of our review, you may then apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have already exhausted the review procedure provided by the Gambling Commission.
It should be noted that if you wish to raise a complaint with the ICO about the Commission’s handling of your request for information, then you are required to do so within six weeks of receiving your final response or last substantive contact with us.
The ICO can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office (opens in new tab), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Information Management Team
Gambling Commission
Internal Review Request
Thank you for the response. I would just like to clarify, within a different FOI request - the commission has indeed had an introduction to the campaign for fairer gambling, and has communicated with it.
Can you reconfirm that the Gambling Commission has never corresponded with the Campaign for fairer gambling.
Internal Review Response
I am writing to you further to your Freedom of Information (FOI) request dated 23/05/2025. Which we responded to on 29/05/2025, and your subsequent request for an internal review, received on 29/05/2025.
We have now concluded our review and our findings are detailed below.
This internal review was conducted by someone who was not involved in the processing of your original request.
In your initial email you requested the following information:
All communication including number of meetings (if at all) and all email communication between the Gambling Commission and:
1) The Campaign for fairer gambling
2) Derek Webb
The response to your request is available on the Gambling Commission website, as part of our disclosure log - Communication with The Campaign for Fairer Gambling
In our response we advised that no information was held by the Commission falling within the scope of part one of your request. Further to this, we advised that confirming whether we do or do not hold information falling within the scope of part two of your request would constitute the disclosure of personal data. Therefore, section 40(5) of the FOIA was engaged.
In your request for an internal review of this response, you have focused on the Commission’s answer to part one of the request. As such, this is the only element which has been reviewed.
Internal Review
To fulfil part one of your request, we conducted a search across Gambling Commission systems for emails to or from @fairergambling.com OR @consultbds.com email addresses, these are generic contact addresses identified on the the Campaign for Fairer Gambling website. This search yielded no records falling within the scope of your request.
Having reviewed your request and our response, I can confirm that these search terms would not necessarily capture all information falling with the scope of your request held by the Commission. As such a new search has been performed across Gambling Commission systems for emails containing the phrase “Campaign for fairer Gambling”. This search yielded a high volume of records which would each need to be reviewed in order to retrieve those relevant to your request. Further to this, following discussion with colleagues across the Commission, it has been established that communication with representatives of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling may be via email domains where the email address does not include ‘Campaign for Fairer Gambling’. As such, identifying all potential points of contact to fulfil your request would be a burdensome process.
Therefore, I can confirm that information falling within the scope of part one of your request is held by the Commission, overturning the response which was initially provided to you. However, section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit, which for public authorities, such as the Commission, is set at £450. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the department holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information. We estimate that it would take in excess of 18 hours to determine appropriate material and locate, retrieve and extract any relevant information in reference to your request as there is a high volume of records which may contain relevant information and would need to be reviewed individually.
When a public authority applies the Section 12 exemption to a request, the FOIA guidance specifically states that a public authority should avoid providing any information found as a result of a search as it denies the requestor the right to express a preference as to which parts of the request they may wish to receive within the appropriate time limit.
If you are able to narrow your request, we may be able to provide some data by working up to the time limit.
Until we are able to process the search and retrieval of the information you have requested, that can be provided within the statutory time limit, we are unable to ascertain if other exemptions will apply to the material retrieved, which would also prevent disclosure.
Please note, any refined request would be processed as a new request and the 20 working day statutory time limit would apply.
If you are not content with the outcome of your review, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the Gambling Commission. The ICO can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.