Report
Annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024
The Gambling Commission's 2023 to 2024 Annual report and accounts. For the period 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.
Directors’ report - Executive team
Andrew Rhodes
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Andrew joined the Commission as Interim Chief Executive in June 2021, was appointed as permanent CEO in June 2022 and was appointed as a Commissioner by the Secretary of State in July 2023.
As the Commission’s Accounting Officer, Andrew is personally responsible for safeguarding public funds, for propriety and regularity in the handling of those public funds and for the day-to-day operations and management of the Commission.
Andrew joined the Commission from Swansea University, where he was Registrar and Chief Operating Officer, and previously held a range of senior civil service roles at Director-General and Director level at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Food Standards Agency and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA).
View a full list of the Chief Executive's responsibilities in our Corporate Governance Framework, section 3 - People.
Sarah Gardner
Deputy Chief Executive Officer
Sarah joined the Commission in 2009 and has held a number of leadership roles across the Commission.
She spent her earlier career as a civil servant in various government departments covering a wide range of topics including tax, international policy, consumer protection, competition, regulation, small business, and enterprise policy. Sarah was appointed Deputy Chief Executive in June 2020. As part of her current role, she oversees a portfolio which includes regulation of the National Lottery and the development of strategy.
Tim Miller
Executive Director - responsible for Research and Policy
Tim joined the Commission in 2016 after a career spanning over 15 years in the regulatory and public sector.
He was previously head of policy and communications at the Local Government Ombudsman, and prior to that was head of public affairs at the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman. These roles followed ten years at the Law Society of England and Wales in a variety of regulatory posts.
In his role at the Commission, Tim also leads the Commission’s programme of work to implement the Gambling White Paper.
John Tanner
Executive Director – responsible for Fourth National Lottery Competition
John joined the Commission in 2019 and is a highly experienced project delivery professional with an extensive background in delivering major government projects across a number of departments, most recently HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Home Office.
He is a graduate of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s Major Projects Leadership Academy.
John has been responsible for the successful running and outcome of the Fourth National Lottery Competition allowing the transition to a new operator for the first time in the history of the National Lottery on 1 February 2024 and oversight and assurance of the delivery of the Allwyn full application by 28 February 2025.
Kay Roberts
Executive Director - responsible for Operations
Kay was appointed as Executive Director of Operations at the Commission in September 2022. She leads the Licensing, Compliance, Enforcement, and Intelligence functions at the Commission.
She has had a successful career as Head of Operations for Ombudsman Services. In this previous role, Kay had leadership responsibility for the delivery of dispute resolution for the Communications, Energy and Parking sectors.
Kay is a qualified Trading Standards Officer and worked for local government for over 15 years, latterly as Head of Enforcement, Fraud, and Investigations for Cheshire East Council. She has always had a keen interest in regulation and consumer protection, starting her career with a degree in consumer protection.
Alistair Quigley
Chief Technology Officer - responsible for Digital, IT and Facilities
Alistair was appointed in May 2016 as Chief Technology Officer at the Commission. He has had a 35-year career in IT and started his early career managing a Midlands-based IT training centre, before spending six years with National Express, becoming their IT Director and overseeing the transport firm’s rapid online growth.
He was managing director of IVU Traffic Technologies UK, a specialist software developer, before joining the Commission 18 years ago.
Lucy Denton
Director of Communications - responsible for Communications, Public Affairs and Contact Centre
Lucy joined the Commission in July 2021 having established herself as an innovative leader in government communications.
She joined from the Office of the Public Guardian, an agency of the Ministry of Justice, where she led the multi-disciplinary Communications team. Her team’s award-winning diversity and inclusion campaigns received notable praise within the industry.
Prior to this, Lucy led strategic communications and campaigns at the Government Digital Service for over two years. She pioneered award-winning digital communications as part of the cross-government response to the 2015 Ebola crisis while at the Department of Health and worked at the House of Commons for four years, orchestrating cutting-edge social media and digital strategies to engage audiences.
Helen Gibson
Finance Director - responsible for Finance, Procurement, Business Planning and Performance Reporting.
Helen joined the Commission in March 2022, having worked in a number of senior Finance roles within central government.
She previously worked in the Cabinet Office and the Department for Exiting the EU, with significant experience across Finance, Shared Services, Corporate Services and also Operational delivery. This includes leading on finance and corporate activities for the G7 Presidency Taskforce, managing through a challenging period of time to help deliver the first in-person international Summit since COVID-19, in June 2021.
Helen Child
Head of Governance and Data Protection Officer
Helen has worked for the Commission since 2019. She is responsible for corporate governance, information and risk management, and expert groups.
She has previously worked in the voluntary sector, and for the Metropolitan Police Service, Transport for London and in the Civil Service.
Helen is a trustee of Family Society, an adoption agency operating in the Midlands.
Natasha Harris
Executive Director of People Services
Natasha joined the Commission in August 2023 as the Executive Director for People Services. Natasha is an accomplished HR Director with more than 20 years’ experience working in public and private sector organisations.
Having delivered transformational change in different contexts, Natasha has been credited for her ability to develop and implement HR strategies that improve the overall employee experience and positively impact organisational performance. With equality, diversity and inclusion as a cornerstone to delivering an improved employee experience, Natasha has driven demonstrable change by leveraging and creating opportunities to diversify the workforce by embedding inclusion into workplace practices including attraction, recruitment and development.
Alongside her work and family life, Natasha volunteers as a school governor at a local special school for children with autism and sits on the HR and Remuneration Committees at Birmingham City University.
Katharine Diamond
General Counsel
Katharine joined the Commission in January 2024.
She is a barrister and was called to the Bar in 1998. Katharine has extensive experience in legal roles across government and arms-length bodies in a wide range of public law areas spanning litigation, advisory, legislative drafting, information law and regulatory disciplines. Katharine is a qualified arbitrator.
Katharine has held roles including the first Director at the Pubs Code Adjudicator, Senior advisory lawyer in the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and in DCMS, Advisory and Bill lawyer in the Cabinet Office and Employment litigation lawyer in the Government Legal Department.
Throughout her career, Katharine has honed her craft in providing strategic advice in technical, complex and novel legal areas often at the intersection of public and private law; building, developing and leading cohesive and diverse teams in the advisory and regulatory fields.
Nadine Pemberton Jn Baptiste (resigned 30 November 2023)
General Counsel
Nadine joined the Commission in March 2021 and is a solicitor with extensive experience in leadership roles in compliance and enforcement matters, spanning the regulatory, criminal and civil fields across the public sector. Nadine has held roles at the Crown Prosecution Service, the Care Quality Commission, the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, the independent Office for Police Conduct, the Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office and Social Work England.
Register of disclosable interests
The Commission has adopted a Managing conflict of interest policy to outline the approach taken to avoiding, declaring and managing the interests of Commissioners, Executives and members of advisory groups.
The policy requires eligible individuals to submit an annual declaration, alongside updates as interests are acquired or disposed of. All agendas require attendees to declare any relevant interests in agenda items at the start of each Board, Committee or Executive meeting and absent themselves from those discussions. No directorships or other significant interests were held by Board members or executives 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.
Andrew Rhodes
Chief Executive and Accounting Officer
Last updated: 17 October 2024
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