Gambling (Jersey) Law 201-: 25% of fines to go to Jersey Charities (P.124/2011) - Comments of the Minister for Economic Development

DRAFT COMMENT BY THE MINISTER FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ON P.124/11 “GAMBLING (JERSEY) LAW 201-: 25% OF FINES TO GO TO JERSEY CHARITIES”

This Proposition has the laudable aim of seeking to provide additional funding for Jersey Charities and that is something that I am committed to and which my department, through the administration of the Jersey segment of the Channel Islands Lottery, works hard to promote.  This year the States were informed through RC30 of £423,699 of funding provided to the Association of Jersey Charities from the CI Lottery Fund.  This contribution will hopefully rise next year as the consequences of the reforms to the Lottery come into effect.  Providing funding through the voluntary purchase of lottery tickets is a therefore a successful and defensible funding mechanism that works well.

While sympathetic to this cause, however, I cannot and do not support this Proposition.  The provision of charitable giving is not something that should be funded in an ad hoc way and it is entirely inappropriate that a link between ‘fines’ (or civil penalties as they are more accurately described) and charities should be established.  The adjudication of breaches of the forthcoming Gambling Law will be a responsibility of the Jersey Gambling Commission.  It will be the Commission’s role to decide whether a breach of a licence condition is sufficiently serious and on-going to warrant an administrative penalty and such penalty would only be imposed as a last resort after repeated notification and other avenues for remedial action had been ignored.

The Commission informs me that it is highly unlikely that civil penalties would be imposed, given the process that should be followed provides ample opportunity for a company to rectify its behaviour prior to any penalty being applied.  To that extent the power to impose such penalties are powers of last resort and could not be relied upon as a funding mechanism.  Deputy Le Claire has argued that notwithstanding, any funding for charity, expected or not, is a good thing.  That may be so in general terms, but just as it would be inappropriate for the Commission to keep penalties for its own use, so too would the possible accusation that the Commission was trying to raise funds for other causes through this route.  Linking penalties to raising revenues, even for charity, is bad practice and should not be adopted.

The States does have a power under the new Law to make Regulations about the use of any administrative penalties.  This was included to ensure that these penalties remain in sync with policy adopted across other regulatory bodies where administrative civil penalty regimes are being adopted.  It is important that there is uniformity of policy across these areas and that civil proceedings do not start to widely vary merely because of the regulatory authority one is dealing with.  This would raise questions of propriety and good governance.  There is a much better case for waiting until other civil penalty regimes have been considered and adopted by the States.  It is expected that amendments to the powers of the Jersey Financial Services Commission will include these provisions and that the Jersey Financial Services Ombudsman (if approved) would also have these powers.  Once these regimes have been approved and adopted, then the States can take a holistic approach to the whole question.  While providing funding to charity is appealing, why not place any penalties in the Social Responsibility Fund, which provides funding for education, prevention and research into problem gambling?  Why not explore the option of using penalties to reduce the licence charges of companies that by their actions prove to be responsible corporate citizens?  There are any number of possible uses of such monies in the future, but they should be considered together and not in isolation.

The States is constantly facing criticism for wasting public money and being overly bureaucratic.  To develop a system that in all likelihood will deliver no benefit cannot make sense and for that reason I cannot support the Proposition.

Presentation of this comment was late as the States Assembly elected to bring the debate on this Proposition forward from 20th September 2011.