National Audit Office: Gambling Commission needs more support from DCMS
New report claims UK regulator lacks necessary funding to cope with “huge and fast-evolving industry”
The UK’s National Audit Office (NAO) has called on the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to provide more funding to the Gambling Commission to help meet its regulatory objectives.
The NAO, which scrutinises public spending on behalf of parliament, made the claim following the publication of its report: Gambling regulation: problem gambling and protecting vulnerable people.
The report claims the way gambling regulation is funded does not allow the UKGC to be flexible with licence fees, making it more difficult to invest in the skills to quickly address ever-changing risks.
At present, the UK receives funding almost exclusively through the licence fees of gambling operators, with £19m brought in during 2018-19.
But since the last licence fee review in 2016, the UKGC has significantly expanded its remit, beefing up its enforcement and regulatory agenda to keep up with the growing online industry, an approach which has seen an increase in fines, licence reviews and revocations.
Meg Hillier MP, chair elect of the Committee of Public Accounts, said: “The Gambling Commission needs to up its game. It is not doing enough to make gambling safe and ensure firms raise their standards.
“Government must play its part too. Many cash-starved local authorities are not inspecting gambling premises and DCMS has failed to give the Gambling Commission access to the funding it needs,” she added.
These sentiments were echoed by Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, who said the UKGC was a small regulator in a “huge and fast-evolving industry” and was struggling to keep pace as a result.
“While the Commission has made improvements, gambling regulation lags behind the industry,” said Davies.
“The Commission and government need to work together to ensure that regulation keeps pace with the risk to gamblers,” he added.
A UKGC spokesperson agreed with the conclusion that the regulator’s resources are stretched.
“We agree with the report’s assessment that we face the significant challenge of regulating a dynamic and developing industry. It also underlines the constraints that our current funding arrangements presents, and we are developing proposals to discuss this with DCMS.”
The NAO further called on the UKGC to be more “systematic and detailed” in recording and analysing information about gamblers to plug gaps in its knowledge, as well as doing more to incentivise operators to raise industry compliance standards.
It claims both the UKGC and DCMS need to develop a deeper understanding of the causes and impacts of gambling-related harm, as well as reviewing the consumer complaints process.
Source: iStock