Documents from the Fourth National Lottery Licence Competition process

Request

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide me with copies of the following documents from the Fourth National Lottery Licence Competition process:

• the discussion document prepared by Rothschild &Co that was shared with registered interested parties in September 2019;
• the Application Agreement that was issued in draft form on or around 5 December 2019;
• the Engagement Agreement that was issued in December 2020;
• the Cooperation Agreement that was issued in December 2020;
• the full Frequently Asked Clarifications log, covering the period 13 January2020 to the first submission date in 2021; and
• the Invitation to Apply (ITA) and related documents that were issued in December 2020, which included details on the Gambling Commission's evaluation criteria and the Solution Risk Factor concept.

Further, a statement that the Gambling Commission provided to the Daily Telegraph, for the newspaper's 9 November 2023 report on the fourth National Lottery licence competition, said that the Commission is satisfied that "no sanctioned entities are involved in funding the incoming licensee" and that it did not regard the winning bidder's links to an oil terminal in Samara, Russia and its links to a gas-storage joint-venture with Gazprom in Moravia, Czech Republic as"relevant".

As such, please provide copies of:

any reports, memos, assessments and/or opinions that informed the Gambling Commission's view on the Samara oil terminal and Gazprom joint-venture and its decision that they had no relevance.

Response

Thank you for your request which has been processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

In your email you have requested:

• the discussion document prepared by Rothschild & Co that was shared with registered interested parties in September 2019;
• the full Frequently Asked Clarifications log, covering the period 13 January 2020 to the first submission date in 2021; and
• any reports, memos, assessments and/or opinions that informed the Gambling Commission's view on the Samara oil terminal and Gazprom joint-venture and its decision that they had no relevance.

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. In order to identify, locate and retrieve the information requested relating to point 3 of the above request, we conducted a search of all Gambling Commission email accounts and our filestore system using the search terms “Gazprom” and “Samara”. This search returned a large number of records which would need to be reviewed individually to identify the records that fall within the scope of point 3 of 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, for example, we could review the documents identified within our filestore system only and not our emails.

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: The Information Commissioner’s Office (opens in a new tab), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Information Management Team
Gambling Commission
Victoria Square House
Victoria Square
Birmingham B2 4BP