Grants and Funding for Charities

Request

You have stated that the £635,000 was divested to charities as part of the National Strategy in Reducing Gambling Harms. You have provided a link. On this link, there is absolutely no reference to this alleged £635,000 divestment. Can you clarify why this is?

May 2021 is mentioned as part of exiting special measures for Betfair, but there is no listed divestment. Would you be able to provide clarity here, particularly given charities are to be transparent around grants, funding, and how they can been used?

Response

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

In your email you have requested clarity regarding the £635,000 divestment to charities as part of the National Strategy in Reducing Gambling Harms (NSRGH) by Betfair following their exit from special measures.

Funds from regulatory settlements can include commitments and undertakings as well as a payment in lieu of financial penalty. This may include up to 3 sub-elements depending on the circumstances of the case. These are:

1. divestment back to individuals impacted by the operator’s non-compliance with regulatory requirements. This is usually the customer or a victim of crime, where such victims can be identified. This could be for example, where an individual has stolen from their employer and has spent the money gambling and the operator has not met the regulatory requirements.
2. payments made to organisations for social responsibility purposes.
3. recovery of the Gambling Commission’s costs.

As stated in our response, dated 23/08/2023, as a result of the special measures process the operator divested £635,123 to charities furthering the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms.

Section 44 of the FOIA (prohibitions on disclosure) (1) provides that Information is exempt information if its disclosure (otherwise than under this Act) by the public authority holding it—

(a) is prohibited by or under any enactment.

Section 121 (Financial penalty) of the Gambling Act 2005 (GA), subsection (6) states, the Commission shall—

(a) prepare a statement setting out the principles to be applied by the Commission in exercising the powers under this section.

By virtue of the GA, the Gambling Commission maintains a statement of principles (following consultation from the Secretary of State, the Lord Chancellor, and any other persons as the Commission thinks appropriate) for determining financial penalties. This statement sets out the principles that the Gambling Commission will apply and have regard to in exercising its powers to require the holder of an operating licence or the holder of a personal licence to pay a financial penalty.

As per this statement, where payments are made in lieu of a financial penalty, there must be no positive publicity generated for the operator involved. As such, whilst we are able to make public the overall list of projects that have received monies from regulatory settlements, we are unable to disclose the specific details of which projects have been paid from specific settlements. Therefore, we consider this information exempt from disclosure under section 44 of the FOIA.

Information relating to the destinations of regulatory settlements to be applied for socially responsible purposes can be viewed on the Gambling Commission website:

Destinations of regulatory settlements to be applied for socially responsible purposes.

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

Internal Review Request

Thank you for the reply. Given I have already asked for the decision to be reviewed and am still unsatisfied, can you confirm that this is a final response I can use?

I would like to now take this as a complaint to the Information Commissioner Office as feel it is of public interest given data protection as well as the Gambling Commission's stated objectives around transparency and protecting consumers, that this information is made available.

I find it absurd that the Special Measures report can not be provided. Also that the charities who then received this £635,000 (money that Betfair should not have had in first place) are being covered up, by you not listing on the website where the funds have gone.

I'll look into if the Charity Commission may have a regulatory interest here, as presumably those charities in receipt and part of national strategy to reduce gambling harms would need to declare funding sources.

Internal Review

I am writing to you further to your Freedom of Information request dated 20/09/2023, and your subsequent request for an internal review received on 25/09/2023.

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 clarity regarding the £635,123 divestment to charities as part of the National Strategy in Reducing Gambling Harms (NSRGH) by Betfair following their exit from special measures.

In response, the Commission confirmed that we are unable to disclose the specific details of which projects have been paid from specific settlements. Therefore, we considered this information exempt from disclosure under section 44 of the FOIA.

Section 44 of the FOIA (prohibitions on disclosure) (1) provides that Information is exempt information if its disclosure (otherwise than under this Act) by the public authority holding it—

(a) is prohibited by or under any enactment.

By virtue of the Gambling Act 2005, the Gambling Commission maintains a statement of principles for determining financial penalties. This statement sets out the principles that the Gambling Commission will apply and have regard to in exercising its powers to require the holder of an operating licence or the holder of a personal licence to pay a financial penalty.

As per this statement, where payments are made in lieu of a financial penalty, there must be no positive publicity generated for the operator involved. As such, whilst we are able to make public the overall list of projects that have received monies from regulatory settlements, we are unable to disclose the specific details of which projects have been paid from specific settlements.

Internal review

Firstly, when considering your request, it is important to note that the FOIA provides the public with a right of access to information that is held by a Public Authority, with the intention of putting that information into the public domain. Information that is disclosed to the public via this route is considered to be released to the world at large and therefore any information that is provided in response to a request, processed under the FOIA, can be released to anyone who asks for it.

Responses to FOIA requests are routinely published on the Gambling Commission website, and hence publicly available.

In addition, requests for information received under the FOIA have to be processed as ‘applicant blind’. This means that we do not take into account who has requested the information, or their reasons for asking for it when providing a response. This ensures that we are open, transparent and consistent with the information that we publish into the public domain.

Section 44

After reviewing your request and our response, I uphold our original decision to engage the section 44 exemption. My considerations for this decision are detailed below.

Information is exempt under section 44(1)(a) if its disclosure would breach any of the following:

i. primary legislation (an Act of Parliament); ii. secondary legislation (a Statutory Instrument).

Looking at section 121 (Financial penalty) of the Gambling Act 2005 (GA), subsection (6) states, the Commission shall—

(a) prepare a statement setting out the principles to be applied by the Commission in exercising the powers under this section.

By virtue of the GA, the Gambling Commission maintains a statement of principles (following consultation from the Secretary of State, the Lord Chancellor, and any other persons as the Commission thinks appropriate) for determining financial penalties. This statement sets out the principles that the Gambling Commission will apply and have regard to in exercising its powers to require the holder of an operating licence or the holder of a personal licence to pay a financial penalty.

As per this statement, where payments are made in lieu of a financial penalty, there must be no positive publicity generated for the operator involved. As such, as advised above, we are unable to disclose the specific details of which projects have been paid from specific settlements. Therefore, I uphold the decision that this information is exempt from disclosure under section 44 of the FOIA.

Section 38

Further to this, on consideration of the information you have requested our view is that section 38 Health and Safety of the FOIA is also engaged. Section 38(1) provides that information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to-

(a) endanger the physical or mental health of any individual, or

(b) endanger the safety of any individual.

The Commission considers that the release of the requested information, would be likely to cause significant harm to the physical health of the employees of the charity to whom the monies were divested.

The Commission must now consider if there is a causal link between the requested information and the endangerment that section 38(1)(a) & (b) is designed to protect.

The Commission states that some information relating to the destinations of regulatory settlements is already in the public domain. However, if more specific information were to be released relating to the distribution of funds, it could lead to the charities and specifically their staff being targeted by aggrieved gambling consumers, pursuing refunds or compensation, as has been the case historically. In that regard, there is a real, evidenced, risk to the physical and mental health and safety of individuals linked with charities which have been specifically identified as being associated with particular divestment's.

Further to this, the Commission also argues that it would be detrimental to the public interest if, by exposing the individuals working in this area to potential abuse and intimidation, fewer people would be prepared to work in this field, leading to an inability to conduct important work.

Section 43

Finally, I am also of the view that section 43 (commercial interests) of the FOIA is also engaged regarding the £635,123 divestment to charities.

Section 43(2) of the FOIA provides that information is exempt information if: its disclosure under the FOIA would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it). The information that we hold, falling within the scope of your request, was generated through the work of the NSRGH. The charities concerned have a reasonable expectation that this information will not be disclosed any further.

I acknowledge that there is a legitimate public interest in promoting the transparency of the Commission, as the statutory body responsible for the NSRGH.

However, the charities in receipt of divested funds have a legitimate expectation, that we will not share commercial information of this level. The Commission regularly publishes aggregated information regarding the progress on projects, programmes and services delivered by the range of stakeholders involved in reducing gambling harms, ensuring the transparency and accountability of the process. Specific detail of the destination of particular fines does not contribute to the overall understanding of the NSRGH.

Looking at all the circumstances of the case and the nature of the request, there is more than a 50% chance that prejudice would be caused to both the charities concerned and the integrity of the implementation and security of the NSRGH if the information was disclosed.

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.