Campaign for Fairer Gambling Correspondence
Dear Gambling Commission,
Please could you provide me of copies of all correspondence, whether by email or letter, with the Campaign for Fairer Gambling (including with their offshoot Stop The FOBT's and under their old name "Fair and Opening Gambling Campaign"). Your search may also be facilitated by searching under their founder's name Mr Derek Webb.
This should include their submission to the consultation on the Licencing Conditions and Code of Practice introduced under the 2005 Gambling Act
Yours faithfully,
Richard Richardson
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Dear Mr Richardson
Ref: GC_FoI_13/063
Thank you for your request for information below.
We are dealing with your request under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000. We aim to deal with all requests promptly and in
any event, no later than 20 working days in line with the statutory
requirement.
If you have any queries about this email, please contact me.
Please quote the reference number above in any future communications.
Yours sincerely
Andrew Turton
Information Manager
________________________________________________
Gambling Commission
Victoria Square House
Victoria Square
Birmingham
B2 4BP
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Dear Mr Richardson
Ref: GC_FoI_13/063
I write further to your request for information below.
Please find attached the following documents that relevant to your
request:
· Emails exchanged between the Campaign for Fairer Gambling (‘the
Campaign’) and the Gambling Commission (‘the Commission’)
· Letters exchanged between the Campaign and the Commission
· An FOI request from the Campaign and the response
With regard to the personal data of third parties and junior staff have
been redacted where necessary as it is exempt from disclosure. The Data
Protection Act 1998 requires the processing of personal data to be fair
and lawful.
It would be disproportionate for us to publically disclose the identity of
these individuals unless there is a strong public interest in doing so.
These individuals have a legitimate expectation that their personal data
will not be disclosed unnecessarily. On balance, there is no legitimate
public interest in disclosing their data and it would not be fair to do
so. This information is therefore exempt under section 40(2) of the
Freedom of Information Act 2000.
The Campaign have also submitted a number of FOI requests to the
Commission. Nine of these have been published as part of the Commission’s
publications scheme and are available here dated 10 July 2013:
[1]http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/gh-...
There are two subsequent requests which have not yet been added to the
list of published responses. The first of these is attached. The second
is still being processed so it is not yet ready for publication. This
will appear on the Commission’s publication scheme once it has been
finalised.
We do not hold a submission from the Campaign in response to the
consultation on Licensing Conditions and Code of Practice at the time of
writing.
Review of the decision
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your
request and wish to request an internal review of our decision, you should
write to the Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission at our Victoria
Square address, printed below.
If you are not content with the outcome of the review, you may apply
directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the
Information Commissioner will not make a decision unless you have
exhausted the review procedure provided by the Commission. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at [2]www.ico.gov.uk or the
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Yours sincerely
Andrew Turton
Information Manager
Dear Andrew Turton,
Thank you for your thorough answer to my FOI request.
I am concerned about one matter only.
You say "We do not hold a submission from the Campaign in response to the consultation on Licensing Conditions and Code of Practice at the time of writing".
It occurs to me that you may have considered my request to be related to the current and ongoing LCCP consultation which closes on Dec 4th 2013. I was in fact referring to the original consultation on the LCCP that took place prior to the 2005 Gambling Act implementation in 2007.
The campaign says here:
http://fairergambling.org/the-story-of-t...
"We [the campaign and or Derek Webb and Hannah O'Donnell] took an interest in gambling regulation and observed how inadequate internet gambling regulation was. We conducted an independent survey of attitudes to internet gambling, placed an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal on the subject of US internet gambling regulation and submitted a consultation in the proposed licensing conditions and codes of practice prior to the 2005 UK Gambling Act."
It is that submission to the LCCP consultation that I am particularly interested in. I have many disagreements with the campaign but I do not believe that Derek would have claimed to have submitted a response to the consultation when he did not. It is the content of that submission that I believe should now be in the public domain given that the campaign have spent according to their estimate £500k+ promoting their position since then.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Richardson
Dear Mr Richardson
Thank you for your email below. I have now located the information in question.
The submission you are referring to was from Prime Table Games so it was not identified in my previous search, please accept my apologies for this. The submission is attached.
Kind regards
Andrew Turton
Information Manager
Dear Andrew Turton,
Many Thanks for this speedy turn around on the remaining information. Excellent service.
I have marked the FOI request as completed on the FOI website used for the request (WhatDoTheyKnow), this does assume that when you took the proactive and helpful attitude in digging out this response under the additional name, Prime Table Games, which is linked to the campaign, you checked not just the specific consultation submission discussed but any further communications from PTG alone.
If you did not check for other Prime Table Games communications apart from this consultation submission please could you check for them and release them under this request.
Once again, many thanks.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Richardson
Dear Mr Richardson
Thank you for your email. I'm in the process of going through our archived material to see if there is any additional correspondence which may be subject to disclosure from Prime Table Games.
I should be in a position to respond to you fully by the end of next week. I will of course respond earlier if possible.
Kind regards
Andrew Turton
Information Manager
Dear Mr Richardson
Further to my previous email, please find attached the remaining
correspondence between the Commission and Prime Table Games (PTG) that is
held by the Commission. This includes consultation submissions and
letters exchanged. Some personal data has been redacted (contact
details).
There are two letters which are exempt from disclosure and have therefore
not been provided. These are letters from late 2009 and early 2010
between the Commission and PTG and concerned the operation of PTG’s
business. This exchange contains commercially sensitive information that
was submitted in confidence and is therefore exempt from disclosure. This
is explained in the attached document.
Review of the decision
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your
request and wish to request an internal review of our decision, you should
write to the Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission at our Victoria
Square address, printed below.
If you are not content with the outcome of the review, you may apply
directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the
Information Commissioner will not make a decision unless you have
exhausted the review procedure provided by the Commission. The
Information Commissioner can be contacted at [1]www.ico.gov.uk or the
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Kind regards
Andrew Turton
Information Manager
________________________________________________
Gambling Commission
Victoria Square House
Victoria Square
Birmingham
B2 4BP
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