Organisations consider judicial review of OHID’s £9.4m gambling-harm funding award
Regulation1 min read
Organisations are considering separate judicial reviews of OHID’s recent £9.4m award to groups linked to gambling campaigners in the UK. One proposed challenge would seek to transfer responsibility for commissioning prevention funding from OHID to a new body; neither challenge has been filed. OHID said it assessed awards fairly against published criteria and completed due diligence.
Organisations are reportedly considering separate judicial reviews after the UK government awarded £9.4m to groups linked to gambling campaigners. Neither claim has been filed.
One proposed challenge would seek to transfer responsibility for commissioning prevention funding from OHID to a new body. An individual involved in one challenge alleged that some organisations had not received allocated funds, that awards had been made without an application process and that OHID rules on commercial and profit-making applicants had been breached. Campaigners and established gambling-harm groups have reportedly alleged political interference in the awards.
People close to the campaigners said the for-profit group included in the latest funding update met OHID's criteria as a social enterprise and that DCMS's definition did not exclude limited companies. OHID said its funding decisions followed an assessment against published eligibility and scoring criteria, and that it had carried out due diligence checks against public funding risk and assurance thresholds.
Earlier this year, campaign-linked groups challenged an initial funding decision that excluded them, after which OHID increased the total available funding by about 56% to accommodate newly funded organisations. OHID will distribute close to £40m this year from the statutory levy on gambling operator revenue, which is intended to support the prevention of gambling-related harm.