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The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

Reports on a study of information needs of MPs in the House of Commons (UK Parliament). Members’ requests for information continues on its upward trend and shows no sign of reaching a plateau. This may in part be driven by the general demands of the “information age” and reflected in the ever larger amounts of constituency mail reported by Members. Other factors may include an increasing proportion of younger politicians and more research assistants as a result of increases in the Office Cost Allowance. The Library was considered a key, and indeed indispensable, source of information by MPs. It was valued particularly for speed of response, accuracy, and helpfulness. An exceptionally high rating was given to the quality of Library services as a whole by information users (MPs), information providers (Library staff and Parliamentary Labour Party Resource Centre staff), and the co‐ordinating group (Information Committee). Concludes that user surveys are very central in ensuring a quality information service for Members of Parliament, and the study indicated that on the whole the House of Commons Library Information services match the information needs of UK MPs.

The Library provides information, documentation and research services to Members of the House of Commons. The organization of the Library and the history of POLIS (the Parliamentary On‐Line Information System) are described. The system became operational in 1980, and was set up by and is operated by Scicon Computer Services Ltd. Data entry is performed by the Library's Indexing Unit. Details of the telecommunications, software, hardware and database are given. UNIDAS retrieval software is used, and subject indexing is based on a thesaurus compiled by the Library. Most Library staff are being trained to use the retrieval facilities. Other offices of the House of Commons and of the House of Lords also have terminals linked to the system. Approved non‐Parliamentary users may also subscribe to POLIS via the public‐switched telephone network, Euronet or PSS. Other uses of computers by the Library are described.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

That all is not well with the Library of the House of Commons is indicated by a document published by H.M.S.O. under the title of Special Report from the Select Committee on Library (House of Commons) together with Minutes of Proceedings, Evidence and Appendices. Mr. J. V. Kitto, C.B.E:, Librarian of the House of Commons, is retiring from his post, and in December, 1944, he handed to the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Rt. Hon. Col. D. Clifton Brown, a memorandum giving his views on the Library position, criticising the existing administration, and outlining his suggestions for improvement. The Library is represented as being out of date, understaffed, lacking a serviceable catalogue, and as having an inadequate book fund; and Mr. Kitto proposes a better scale of salaries. There are also memoranda on storage and an appendix indicating that the Library stock is “all over the place.” A Select Committee was constituted, with Mr. George Benson as Chairman. We suggest that if librarians obtain copies of this remarkable report they will be assured of diverting reading.

The study focusses on explaining why advocates for reform to state audit in the United Kingdom (UK) in the early 1980s, focussed on improving the links between the new National Audit Office (NAO) and Parliament, rather than on traditional notions of audit independence. The study shows how this focus on the auditor's link to Parliament depends on a particular concept of liberty and relates this to the wider literature on the place of audit in democratic society.

Understanding the issue of independence of audit in protecting the liberties and rights of citizens needs addressed. In this article, the authors investigate the creation of audit independence in the UK in the National Audit Act (1983). To do so, the authors employ a neo-Roman concept of liberty to historical archives ranging from the late 1960s to 1983.

The study shows that advocates for audit reform in the UK from the 1960s to the 1980s were arguing for an extension to Parliament's power to hold the executive to account and that their focus was influential on the way that the new NAO was established. Using a neo-Roman concept of liberty, the authors show that they believed Parliamentary surveillance of the executive was necessary to secure liberty within the UK.

The neo-Roman republican concept of liberty extends previous studies in considering the importance of audit for public accountability, the preservation of liberty and democracy.

Public sector audit can be a fundamentally democratic activity. Auditors should be alert to the constitutional importance of their work and see parliamentary accountability as a key objective.

The neo-Roman concept of liberty extends previous studies in considering the importance of audit for public accountability, preservation of liberty and democracy.

Our joint theme is information for Parliament and you will be getting two papers for the price of one—which must be some sort of a bargain in these inflationary times. Our hope is that our separate contributions will complement each other to give the evening some completeness it might otherwise lack. I say only ‘some completeness’ because we in the Commons Library are all too aware that our part in the job of providing information for Parliament is but one part of a complex system.

A description of the services of the House of Commons Library is given and of POLIS (the Parliamentary Online Information System). The selection, planning and implementation of the ENQuiries database using the BasisPlus text management software package to record, retrieve and provide management information about the enquiry workload of the House of Commons Library is described. Originally implemented on a VAX 8250 with the other POLIS databases which used BASIS, ENQ was then moved to a MicroVax and then with the rest of POLIS to two VAX 4600s. It now runs on a UNIX processor. The workflow, management reports and consultation process are described. The success of the application is described with reference to its original objectives. A chronology is given.

To examine the effects of technical developments on demand for traditional enquiry services in the House of Commons Library.

Trends in enquiry load are matched against technical advances, especially in the area of user self‐service, using published and unpublished reports.

The growth of resources delivered via the Parliamentary intranet, and the provision of suitable and convenient retrieval equipment, have enabled the end‐user and significantly reduced demands on traditional librarianship and reference skills.

Based on experience of one special library.

Likely to be of use to information practitioners in cognate situations where traditional approaches are being supplanted by technical change.

Case study of an organization adapting to the new realities of an information‐rich corps of users.

In 1786 His Majesty's Stationery Office was formed as an administrative reform to stop the waste of public money that occurred when each Government Department made its own purchases of ink, paper and other requirements. In 1950 the Stationery Office is a supply service for all Government Departments for many things unheard of or unrecognizable as ‘stationery’ in the eighteenth century, e.g. calculating machines and photographic materials. It is responsible for large factories devoted to duplicating, addressing and similar services which can conveniently be centralized. It is now the printer to Parliament and His Majesty's Government, and with minor exceptions it publishes and sells all British official publications.