Report
Annual Report and Accounts 2022 to 2023
The Gambling Commission's 2022 to 2023 Annual Report and Accounts. For the period 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.
4b) Other expenditure
| Description | 2023 £ thousands |
2022 £ thousands |
|---|---|---|
| Accommodation | 833 | 880 |
| Professional fees1 | 8,470 | 13,882 |
| Consultancy costs2 | 189 | 3,078 |
| External legal fees3 | 7,332 | 2,188 |
| Travelling and subsistence | 143 | 50 |
| Agency staff | 102 | 1,211 |
| Other staff costs | 136 | 141 |
| Recruitment, training and development | 303 | 347 |
| Office services | 1,631 | 1,519 |
| External audit fee4 | 106 | 63 |
| Internal audit costs | 128 | 152 |
| Research costs5 | 1,407 | 668 |
| Other costs | 207 | 159 |
| Other expenditure | 20,987 | 24,338 |
| Finance costs6 | 10 | 84 |
| Finance expense7 | 20 | 19* |
| Corporation tax8 | 87 | 2 |
| Total other expenditure | 21,104 | 24,443 |
Annual lease expenditure under exemption thresholds within IFRS 16
Included within other expenditure are payments made by the Gambling Commission during the year under operating leases under International Accounting Standards (IAS) 17.
The following table shows annual lease expenditure under the exemption thresholds within International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 16.
| Description | 2023 £ thousands |
2022 £ thousands |
|---|---|---|
| Land and buildings | 0 | 0 |
| Other | 0 | 3 |
| Total | 0 | 3 |
References
* 2021 to 2022 numbers restated; further information is included in Note 2 of the accounts, Prior period adjustments.
1 Professional fees totalling £8.47 million (2021 to 2022 £13.88 million). £8.20 million relates to increased costs for the National Lottery Competition for ongoing project costs, of which £4.33 million relates to Transition costs, £3.85 million for other Professional Fees.
2 Consultancy costs totalling £0.19 million (2021 to 2022 £3.08 million), £0.12 million relates to costs for the National Lottery Competition. Decrease during the year due to a contract with Rothchild concluding in 2022.
3 Legal costs totalling £7.33 million (2021 to 2022 £2.19 million), £6.77 million relates to costs for the National Lottery Competition for ongoing litigation costs. £6.3 million was spent with Hogan Lovells International LLP and £1.1 million with Capital Law LLP.
4 The external audit fee represents the cost of the audit of the accounts carried out by National Audit Office (NAO). No non-audit work was undertaken by the NAO during the year. The external audit fee for 2022 to 2023 is £106,000 (2021 to 2022 £63,000). This includes an accrual of £89,000 for 2022 to 2023 and £17,000 relating to additional costs for 2021 to 2022.
5 Research costs includes costs associated with prevalence studies into gambling and £826,000 with NatCen for Gambling Survey - Experimental statistics phase. This totalled £1,407,509 in 2022 to 2023 (2020 to 2021 £668,468). This also includes National Lottery research costs totalling £113,822 in 2022 to 2023 (2021 to 2022 £101,784).
6 Finance costs of £10,000 (2021 to 2022 £84,000) relate to Interest on lease liabilities. This includes a credit of £56,000 due to the Bloomsbury lease ended in November 2022, leaving a residual balance of £56,723 which has been released through the Statement of Comprehensive Net Expenditure (SoCNE) in Finance Costs, comparatively reducing this compared to Financial Year Ending 2022.
7 Finance expense of £20,000 (2021 to 2022 £19,000) relating to the unwinding of discounts of provisions (see Note 13, Provisions for liabilities and charges).
8 Corporation tax expense of £87,000 (2021 to 2022 £2,000) relating to tax on interest receivable (see Note 5b, Gambling Act 2005 income recognised). Interest received on fee income has significantly increased during 2022 to 2023 due to the increases in Bank of England rates during the year.
Last updated: 15 April 2024
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