While many UK charities tackling gambling harms continue to face an existential funding shortage, health officials have maintained close ties with anti-gambling campaigners. A set of documents obtained via a freedom of information request and sent to specialist outlet NEXT.io has detailed an often cosy relationship between the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and campaign groups seeking access to statutory tax funding.
The documents also outline how the government office gave campaign groups Gambling With Lives and Action on Gambling access to future initiatives such as the Men’s Health Strategy, and sought to work together on the strategy.
Some sources have suggested that this reflects a level of privileged access to government policy that is not afforded to other organisations in the gambling harms prevention sector. They expressed concerns that by not fully engaging with other organisations across the sector, the government office could be causing frontline gambling harms services to suffer, ultimately leading to worse outcomes for end-users.
UK: Collaboration between health authorities and activist groups
Staff at the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities said in emails that they invited campaigners to discuss the Men’s Health Strategy because they were concerned that the programme could face criticism due to its commitment to a partnership with the Premier League.
Freedom of information documents reveal that the government office colluded with campaign groups to work together on various projects, including collaboration on communications and strategy. The supposedly neutral government body referred to individuals representing the campaign groups as “colleagues” in one email.
Following a meeting between the office and a campaign group, an official responsible for distributing tax funding equitably explicitly raised political feedback as a valid point of consideration.
Revealing content from internal communications
In an email from November 15th, officials highlighted a campaigner’s response: “We must ensure that they know the true context of gambling harms and are not swayed by the industry narrative. We believe that collaboration with the Premier League in the long term could be a plus, as it would shine a light on the hypocrisy of their approach.”
Another significant comment highlighted stated: “It would be good to have a minister in the House talking about public health and gambling, as so far it is only the Secretary of State for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport who is promoting gambling.”
Industry sources who spoke to specialist outlet NEXT.io questioned whether the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities was outsourcing policy to some of the more hardline campaign organisations involved in the space.
Read also: Chile: Charity files money laundering complaint against online payment processors
Differential treatment of traditional charities
In contrast to the privileged treatment afforded to campaign groups, other third-sector organisations, associated with the traditional funding model, have struggled to engage with the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, with one source telling the specialist outlet that the Department of Health unit often seemed to simply ignore their emails.
Other service providers were only able to elicit responses from the government office after third parties intervened to help act as mediators, while others engaged with the body as part of the commissioning process but had more limited access than campaigners.
This comes amid a political stance that has become popular with some public health officials within the department, whereby organisations that previously received funding under the old system are viewed with suspicion.
Lack of response and questioned policies
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities also failed to respond to NEXT.io’s recent request for comment on the matters highlighted in the freedom of information documents.
The unit has repeatedly attempted to limit access to tax funding for harm prevention organisations funded under the previous quasi-voluntary system, and more recently backtracked on a last-minute attempt to discriminate against these groups after an outcry from stakeholders.
Financial crisis in treatment organisations
This comes as many charities tackling gambling harms across the UK have been pushed to the brink of bankruptcy by inadequate interim measures, have had to radically cut back on services, and subsequently seen experienced talent leave the sector.
Several professionals involved in the sector have told the specialist outlet that this has run the risk of harming service users through a degraded support network for gambling harms in the UK. The crisis threatens the country’s ability to provide effective treatment for problem gamblers at a time when demand for these services could be increasing.
Read also: Tribunal of Brazil orders mandatory warnings about addiction risks on betting platforms
