Report
Annual Report and Accounts 2020 to 2021
The Gambling Commission's 2020 to 2021 Annual Report and Accounts
Directors’ report, Board of Commissioners
William Moyes
Chairman
Dr William (Bill) Moyes’ career has spanned the public and private sectors, including leadership roles at five national regulators.
Having completed a PhD in theoretical chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, Bill entered the UK Civil Service Fast Stream in 1974 and spent 20 years in policy-making roles in Whitehall and the Scottish Ofce.
Bill is also the Chairman of the General Dental Council, which regulates dental professionals to secure the delivery of high standards of education, training and professional practice to protect the public. Bill has held positions in banking – funding the construction of hospitals, a period as director general at the British Retail Consortium and executive chair at Monitor, the independent regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts. Previous board appointments include the Priory Hospital Group, the Legal Services Board and the Office of Fair Trading. Bill has extensive experience of organisational leadership at board and senior executive level in the regulation of industries and professional groups.
Bill will step down from his term as Chairman in September 2021.
John Baillie
Chair of Audit and Risk Committee
John is a Chartered Accountant and a former partner of KPMG in Scotland and London. He is a former chair of the Accounts Commission for Scotland, the Scottish local authority watchdog and served two three-year terms.
He was also a member of the Reporting Panel of the UK Competition and Markets Authority for nine years. John was also a visiting professor of accountancy at the University of Edinburgh and has previously held similar appointments at other Scottish universities.
John’s first term as a Commissioner ends in April 2021, but his reappointment for a further 12 months was announced in March of this year.
Stephen Cohen
Chair of National Lottery Competition Committee
Stephen has over 40 years’ experience in asset management, in Asia, Europe and the USA. He started his career with Mercury Asset Management and worked both as a portfolio manager and in business development.
Stephen is also on the board of the Health & Care Professions Council, a healthcare regulator, and is Chair of Audit for both the JPMorgan Japan Investment Trust plc and the Schroder UK Public Private Trust plc. Stephen brings a global business perspective, deep experience of finance and financial services regulation, corporate governance, as well as board engagement, activism and fintech.
Trevor Pearce CBE QPM
Chair of National Lottery Committee, Remuneration Committee and Reset
Trevor Pearce has had a 40-year career in law enforcement.
Starting at Kent County Constabulary, he moved to national agencies becoming director general at both the National Crime Squad and Serious Organised Crime Agency. More recently, Trevor has focussed on regulatory roles and risk management. He is chair of UK Anti-Doping and trustee of Canterbury Oast Trust, a charity providing residential services to adults with learning difficulties. He is also trustee of Stop the Traffik, a charity working to prevent human trafficking.
Trevor brings experience of running large complex organisations, dealing with international serious and organised crime, anti-money laundering, integrity and anti-corruption.
Catharine Seddon
Senior Independent Director
Catharine spent 20 years as a film-maker before taking up public non executive roles. She started as a graduate trainee producer with the BBC and soon specialised in high-end film documentaries, eventually setting up her own production company. She became a magistrate in 2000 and later left television to take up a variety of other judicial roles, to become a member of the Human Tissue Authority and to sit on the Determinations Panel of the Pensions Regulator.
Catharine now sits on the Legal Services Board, where she chairs its Audit and Risk Assurance Committee and has recently joined the board of the HFEA. She is a founding member of the Health Service Products Appeal tribunal and is also a trustee for special needs charity, CPotential.
Catharine’s first term as a Commissioner ends in April 2021, but her reappointment for a further 12 months was announced in March of this year.
Carol Brady MBE
Commissioner
Carol Brady is currently Chair of Birmingham Assay Ofce which provides assaying and hallmarking of precious metals and is also the managing director of a consumer protection consultancy.
Her career has been focused on consumer protection and her previous roles have included chairing the claims management regulation unit at the Ministry of Justice, chairing the Chartered Trading Standards Institute’s Board, acting as a senior ombudsman at the Legal Ombudsman and as an independent advisory member at the Commission for Local Administration (Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman).
Carol was awarded an MBE in 2016 in recognition of her services to consumers and better regulation. She is a fellow of the CTSI, an honour bestowed on her in 2009 for her contribution to the profession. She began her career with trading standards and has worked in the former Department for Trade and Industry to set up the Consumer Direct helpline.
Terry Babbs
Chair of Finance and Performance Committee
Terry Babbs has spent his executive career in both the private and public sectors – including with Tesco and a number of global supply chain management organisations. Aside from his role at the Commission, Terry is also the Senior Independent Director at the General Dental Council, vice chair of the Investment Committee of Oxfam’s Enterprise Development Programme, and a non-executive director of HMRC’s Valuation Ofce Agency.
Brian Bannister
Commissioner
Currently the Global Head of External Communications for the Boston Consulting Group, Brian Bannister was previously Executive Director for Strategic Insight and Influence at The Law Society of England and Wales. He has also led global communications for KPMG and UK communications at PwC.
Jo Hill
Commissioner
Jo Hill is currently Executive Director of Strategy and Risk at The Pensions Regulator where she leads on corporate strategy, risk management, data and analysis. She was previously Director of Market Intelligence, Data and Analysis at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and held a number of senior roles across the FCA, while also working in the banking and insurance sectors. Jo is also a Trustee of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute.
Two further Commissioners, Jonathan Scott and Sir Martin Narey left the Commission during the financial year.
Register of disclosable interests
Board members completed their annual declarations of interest and are asked to declare any relevant interests in agenda items at the start of each board meeting and absent themselves from those discussions. No directorships or other significant interests were held by board members that may have conflicted with their management responsibilities.
Directors’ disclosure
As far as the directors are aware, there is no relevant audit information of which the auditors have not been made aware. All reasonable steps have been taken by the directors in order to make themselves aware of any relevant audit information and to establish that the auditors are aware of this information.
Whistleblowing policy
The Commission has a whistleblowing policy in place for the confidential reporting of unlawful conduct or malpractice.
The policy is readily available on the intranet for all employees to refer to, and reminders on the requirements of this policy, together with all aspects of the code of conduct are communicated regularly via internal communication methods.
All new Commission employees are required to confirm in writing that they have read the Code of Conduct, including the whistleblowing policy which is included in our Public Interest Disclosure policy, as part of the induction programme.
Fees and charges
The Commission aims to ensure that the costs incurred in delivering the organisation’s strategic objectives are recovered from the industry through application and licence fees set by the Secretary of State. We periodically review our costs to drive efficiency and value for money as well as review our approach to cost recovery via fees to see how it could be made more equitable. As a direct result of this process, the Commission delivered, through the 2017 fees review, a reduction in licence fees from 2017-18.
Current application and licence fees range from £195 to £494,856 dependent on operator size and licence type. The Commission’s total income from fees and other sources was £18.87 million for the year (2019-20: £19.90 million). Further analysis of fees and charges is provided in the Performance Analysis section.
Andrew Rhodes
Interim Chief Executive and Accounting Officer
6 July 2021
William Moyes
Chairman
6 July 2021
Last updated: 2 November 2023
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Formatting changes corrected.