Land-based assessments
Request
- Please provide all land-based assessments carried out between 2015-2024 annually, and the number so far in 2025.
- Please break down this data for the borough of Brent, London specifically.
- How much money has been spent on land-based assessment activities in the last five years? How much does each assessment cost?
- How much money has been spent on online assessment activities in the last five years?
Response
Thank you for your request which has been processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
In your email you have requested:
- Please provide all land-based assessments carried out between 2015-2024 annually, and the number so far in 2025.
- Please break down this data for the borough of Brent, London specifically.
- How much money has been spent on land-based assessment activities in the last five years? How much does each assessment cost?
- How much money has been spent on online assessment activities in the last five years?
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.
In order to identify, locate and retrieve the information requested, we conducted a search relating to land-based assessments which retrieved a large number of records. Note, throughout the period detailed within your request, the Commission have changed the way we report. As displayed within the following response, Compliance assessments, some records for variations of full assessments are reported up to 2022/23 - there then appears records under Assessment and Assessment - other.
Assessment is where we record full assessments also known in the industry as corporate evaluations.
Assessment - other would include other types of assessments.
Land-based compliance activity could fall into either of those categories.
In order to identify whether we hold any information falling within the scope of your request we would need to review all of these documents to assess if they were relevant to your request, and therefore we estimate that it would take in excess of 18 hours to determine appropriate material and 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:
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 order to be of further assistance, we do not hold information falling within scope of point 2, 3 or 4 of your request. Specifically in relation to point 2, it should be noted that as the national regulator of gambling our land-based compliance work primarily focusses upon the regulatory compliance of the company that we have granted a licence to. They may operate multiple premises within different local authority areas and so our work is not recorded against individual premises in the way your request seeks. The primary responsibility for the inspection of individual premises sits with the local authority that granted the premises licence. They charge a fee for that licence and legislation requires them to only use those fees for the purposes of local regulatory activity. You can find data on the actions taken by local authorities at Licensing Authority Statistics 2023 to 2024 - Superseded: Official statistics.
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 a new tab), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Information Management Team
Gambling Commission