Levy Board preparing to hand over to its successor

The Levy Board's focus is moving increasingly towards leaving a strong structure in place for the body that replaces it next year, as the organisation yesterday laid its last annual report before parliament prior to the levy system being replaced in the spring.

A fall in gross profit on horseracing in betting shops had been anticipated since a poor Cheltenham Festival for bookmakers, and the report yesterday revealed the overall effect to be a drop of nine per cent in 2015-16.

In March the government announced it planned to replace the levy system from April 1, 2017, with the government setting a rate, a slimmed-down Levy Board responsible only for collecting funds, and a new Racing Authority responsible for distributing the money.