Kirsty Caldwell, the interim chair of the Gambling Commission’s Industry Forum, has responded to what she described as “some confusion” regarding the panel’s purpose during an interview on the regulator’s own podcast channel, telling listeners “our job is not to lobby the Commission and try to drive policy direction”. But really shouldn’t it be? Perhaps it’s the Industry Forum that needs a change of direction.
Kirsty Caldwell, chair of the Industry Forum, has responded to “some confusion” regarding the purpose of the panel, stating its role is not to lobby on behalf of the industry, but to ensure the Gambling Commission’s policies are enacted in a “smooth and effective” manner.
Speaking on the regulator’s Inside the Commission podcast, Caldwell explained how the Forum meets every other month in order to facilitate a response to the Commission’s agenda, with the regulator “very much driving the agenda.”
“There’s some confusion about this within the wider industry,” said Caldwell. “We’re not a trade body, we’re not competing with the trade bodies, we’re not trying to be a trade body. Our job is not to lobby the Commission and try to drive policy direction, it is to support the Commission in undertaking policy change, trying to make that as smooth and effective and sensible for the industry as possible.”
“There’s obviously lots of different ways the Commission works with the industry and gathers information, one thing about the forum is we’re independent, so we are representing ourselves as individuals. Yes, we work within the industry, but we’re not representing our licensed business when we’re dealing with Commission staff.”
Speaking on the relationship between the staff and the Forum, Caldwell said that “up to this point the Commission has very much driven the agenda, and that’s been based on which colleagues have needed that sounding board at that particular point.”
“Moving forward we want to try and get that process to be a little more collaborative. There’s this very fast-paced regulatory environment, and there’s often things operators want to talk about, hot topics, so we’re looking at ways to work more collaboratively, and bring those operator-brought agenda items into the meetings as well.”
Caldwell added another key role of the Forum is reviewing Commission documents before they are published, stating “a good example of that would be the AML Risk Assessment, which is due to go out.”
“There’s lots of different ways that we kind of get involved, and that’s evolving and developing all the time, which I think is really good. It shows that we’re moving forwards.”
Moving forwards?
Kirsty Caldwell said… “There’s lots of different ways that we kind of get involved, and that’s evolving and developing all the time, which I think is really good. It shows that we’re moving forwards…
