Culture Secretary appoints new Gambling Commissioners

Culture Secretary Sajid Javid has appointed three new Gambling Commissioners to the regulator’s 10-strong board.  Alison Hastings and Trevor Pearce CBE have both been given 4 year terms, while Jonathan Scott has been given 5 years.

Alison Hastings is a Non-executive Director and Vice President of the British Board of Film Classification, a Press Complaints Commissioner, a Non-executive Director of Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, a Board Member of Durham University, and until recently the BBC Trustee for England. Her term of appointment will begin on 1 May 2015.

Trevor Pearce is the Director of Special Investigations at the National Crime Agency and formerly Director of Investigations and Economic Crime at the National Crime Agency. He has previously been Director General (Chief Executive) of the Serious Organised Crime Agency and Director General (Chief Constable) of the National Crime Squad. His term of appointment will begin on 1 July 2015.

Jonathan Scott is retiring Senior Partner and Chair at Herbert Smith Freehills. He has extensive high level experience of the gambling sector and competition law, having advised on mergers within the industry, and of governance and regulation. His term of appointment will begin on 1 May 2015.

Meanwhile Rachel Lampard, who has been a Commissioner since 2006, has now been appointed to the advisory body Responsible Gambling Strategy Board.  She is due to retire from her post on the Gambling Commission Board in July this year after nine years in office.

Lampard provides a unique combination of an understanding of both the policy and regulatory approach adopted by the Commission as well as the history and evolution of the arrangements for providing research, education and treatment for gambling. She led the original review of the effectiveness and level of existing voluntary arrangements for research, education and treatment requested by the Department for Culture Media and Sport in 2007.

More recently, she headed up the Commission’s review of social responsibility measures within Licence conditions and codes of practice.

The Commission said: “Rachel’s appointment offers continuity in expertise of regulatory policy matters which we hope will be enhanced by further additional RGSB Board members being sought through a current external recruitment exercise. Applicants are invited with expertise in addiction, harm prevention, young people, social and digital media, evaluation, and economics and public health.”