The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) is to advise the government that licensing fees and costs should be amended.
The regulatory body says that the alteration should be made to take account of the “significant changes” in the population of operators that it regulates and to address “identified problems in the current fees structure”.
The government said that it would consider fees once changes to the regulation of remote gambling had been fully implemented. The UKGC said that the first full year’s data post the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 would be released before the end of the year, and at this point a clearer picture will be available of the immediate impacts those changes have had on the Commission’s costs and income.
A UKGC statement read: “The purpose of this discussion document is to explain our approach to recovering costs through licence fees, our current thinking on how the fees structure can be improved, and the implications of the 2014 Act on our costs, income and therefore on the fees needed to recover those costs; and to invite comments to help us prepare our advice on these issues to government.
“We hope that, by providing greater transparency about the way in which the Commission and indeed previous governments set about determining the fees needed for full cost recovery, stakeholders will be able to feed in any suggestions or proposals for improvements at this formative stage.”
The UKGC will be arranging a workshop with the main trade associations to be held on September 24, and would welcome any suggestions via [email protected] by October 27.
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