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  3. Guidance for submitting a proposal for Regulatory Settlement funding

Guidance

Guidance for submitting a proposal for Regulatory Settlement funding

Guidance around submitting a proposal for Regulatory Settlement funding including what Regulatory Settlement funds are and criteria for proposals.

Published
4 May 2022

Last updated
8 September 2022 - Changes

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Contents

Our role with Regulatory Settlements

The Gambling Commission reserves the power to approve the destinations of payments in lieu of financial penalties, which are agreed as part of a regulatory settlement in line with the Commission’s Statement of Principles for Determining Financial Penalties. Note the following extract:

"Payments in lieu of financial penalties

"2.14 Payments made in lieu of a financial penalty as part of a regulatory settlement do not need to be paid into the Consolidated Fund as financial penalties imposed under section 121 do. As a result there is more flexibility about how such monies may be used. However, The Commission will apply the following principles in approaching such agreed payments:

  • The Commission reserves the power to approve the destination of monies paid as part of a regulatory settlement
  • Operators must not generate positive publicity from the settlement
  • Payments need to be demonstrably over and above 'normal' RET contributions
  • Where practicable, the operator should return money to any identified victims
  • If victims cannot be identified or there are no victims, the monies should be given to charity for socially responsible purposes
  • Socially responsible purposes would include purposes which address gambling related harm or in some way promotes one or more of the licensing objectives
  • where payments are made with the aim of addressing gambling-related harm, the presumption is that the money would be paid to GambleAware (formerly Responsible Gambling Trust) to be used for specific agreed purposes that accelerate their commissioning plans
  • Operators should have no interest in organisations who will receive divested funds
  • There should be meaningful evaluation of the effectiveness of projects or research funded by a specific regulatory settlements
  • Research findings must be made public to help raise standards
  • Clear timeframes should be set for payment of monies and for delivery of work paid for from those monies."

In applying the above principles, the Commission takes into account the following points, where relevant:

  • where payments are made with the aim of addressing gambling-related harm, the funds should accelerate progress to reduce gambling harms
  • approvals will take account of the potential for overlap of funding of projects or programmes of work with funding or commissioning from other organisations (where known)
  • it will normally be more effective to use one-off payments for projects or programmes of work that will not require ongoing funding
  • the body to be in receipt of the funds must be willing to accept the money with clear associated paperwork that the monies are part of a settlement in lieu of financial penalty, not a voluntary donation.

The Commission does not oversee the delivery of projects funded through regulatory settlements, nor does it have a role in monitoring the governance of the recipient organisation.

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