Complaints related to breaches of Social Responsibility
Request
Thank you for your response to my request. I appreciate the constraints imposed by the Section 12 and I am willing to refine my request to fit it.
To assist in narrowing down the scope, I would like to prioritize the items in my original request. Please provide guidance on which of these can be supplied within the allocated hours:
- Information on complaints related to breaches of the Social Responsibility Code (LCCP) by operators, and the resolution of these complaints in favour of the public.
- Details on inquiries or reports regarding requests for problem gambling refunds, and cases where gambling businesses issued refunds to problem gamblers without direction from a court or the Gambling Commission.
- The total number of complaints received from the public about gambling operators in the last five years, and the number of these resolved in favour of the public.
- Year-by-year breakdown of money transferred by the top 10 UK betting companies to organizations working with gambling-related harm in the last five years.
I understand that some of these requests may still be too broad. Could you please advise on how I might further refine these to comply with the time and cost limitations?
Response
Thank you for your request which has been processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
In your email you have requested:
- Information on complaints related to breaches of the Social Responsibility Code (LCCP) by operators, and the resolution of these complaints in favour of the public.
- Details on inquiries or reports regarding requests for problem gambling refunds, and cases where gambling businesses issued refunds to problem gamblers without direction from a court or the Gambling Commission.
- The total number of complaints received from the public about gambling operators in the last five years, and the number of these resolved in favour of the public.
- Year-by-year breakdown of money transferred by the top 10 UK betting companies to organizations working with gambling-related harm in the last five years.
Firstly, for context, it should be noted that the Gambling Commission are an industry regulator and not an ombudsman. Our role is to consider if a gambling business has breached their licence conditions and we will take regulatory action where appropriate. We do not become involved in or “act upon” individual complaints.
We use evidence from a range of places, including from gambling customers, to build cases against gambling businesses. Information provided to us helps inform our work to raise gambling industry standards and make gambling fairer and safer. Information drawn from complaints raised against operators may be used by the Commission to inform our regulatory approach and determine whether any action may be necessary.
As such, when we receive any complaint, we will create a record within our records management system and record details of the complaint in a ‘free text’ field. There will be some information held falling within the scope of parts one and two of your request, however, this information is not easily searchable and would require a manual review of each record to identify the information requested.
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.
The information that you have requested is not held in one central location. We estimate, in order to identify, locate and retrieve the information relating to the above request, 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.
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. Guidance on the application of section 12 can be viewed here:
Requests where the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit (opens in a new tab)
If you are able to refine your request, we may be able to narrow the number of records that we need to search.
Until we are able to process the search of the information you have requested, we are unable to ascertain if other exemptions will apply to any material identified 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.
In regards to part three of your request, complaints against individual operators is recorded in an easily extractable format as such these figures are reportable. However, we do not necessarily hold the resolution to individual complaints as, as we do not become involved in or “act upon” individual complaints.
Finally, on 1 January 2020 a new LCCP requirement came into force requiring operators to direct their annual financial contribution for gambling research, prevention and treatment (referred to as RET for shorthand) as required by LCCP SR code 3.1.1 to one or more organisations on a list maintained by the Commission.
As such, whilst we do hold information submitted by operators falling within part four of your request, there are multiple caveats, due to the way this information is reported. One of the main issues is that individual operators under the same parent account show the same contributions.
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.
The ICO can be contacted at: Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Information Management Team
Gambling Commission
Victoria Square House
Victoria Square
Birmingham B2 4BP