The Responsible Gambling Fund (RGF), the UK charity which distributes funds for gambling research, education and treatment, issued a statement announcing that it would be terminating its funding agreement with the GREaT Foundation fundraising body.
In the statement, RGF’s trustees found that the tri-partite arrangement set up after the review of research, education and treatment of problem gambling in 2008 to be “unworkable and that they were unable to operate with the degree of independence consistent with their governance documents and their duties under charity law.”
RGF was set up 2009 to distribute funds for research, education and treatment services across the gambling field, independent of the gambling industry. It became fully operational in spring 2010.
The GREaT Foundation, also set up in 2009, raises funds through voluntary donations from the gambling industry which it passes on to RGF to support research into, education about, and treatment of problem gambling.
According to the statement, “RGF’s trustees and staff are already planning how to operate between now and the end of March 2012 when the agreement ends. We will be talking to GREaT about how to manage the current grants and contracts.”
Last year, the RGF made grants and awarded contracts worth £5.7m. RGF also commissioned the Royal College of GPs to run a training programme which was designed specifically to improve the way in which doctors and other primary health care workers identify people who are facing harm from gambling.
