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I begin by examining some ways in which organisations have attempted to improve their recruitment and selection procedures to minimise bias and unfair discrimination, and focus on the assessment centre as a potentially useful technique in this respect, especially for managerial selection. I go on to examine the assessment centre in more detail, including its origins, construction and uses, before discussing the strong evidence for its validity as a selection and assessment procedure. I then describe some recent British innovations in assessment centre design and practice, especially in its use for management and organisation development purposes, before discussing some of my own recent research, in collaboration with Ivan Robertson and Usha Rout, on participants' attitudes towards the use of assessment centres for selection and development purposes, including gender differences in attitudes.

Assessment centres as a total system, involving theoretical, practical and technical aspects, are focused on. Recent research findings on assessment centres, their processes and practices, are discussed and the implications for practice are examined.

The way that women describe management roles tells the story of how their attitudes to management differ from those of men. It also suggests the way to overcome the things that deter women from applying for management jobs.

The controlling Labour Party in Sheffield changed leadership in the early 1980s and introduced policies aimed at “working jointly with council employees and those who use council services, to improve the quality and value of those services and to extend democracy, in a way which provides real choice for those who otherwise would be denied access to power and decision‐making. We will change the experiences of bureaucracy and centralised control which confuse and disappoint those on the receiving end of our efforts by developing a concept of decentralisation which brings services and those working for the council closer to the people”.

THE European campaign to catch up with the United States and Japan in the provision of information technology took a major step forward at the end of February when the Council of Ministers of the European Communities adopted the ESPRIT programme. ESPRIT equates to the ‘European Strategic Programme of Information Technology’ and the main areas of research cover micro electronics, software technology, advanced information processing, office systems, and computer integrated manufacturing. The programme will span the years 1984–88 and will cost 1,500,000,000 European Units of Account (£900,000,000), half of which will be contributed by the European Communities Commission, and half by industry. Although the European Community represents over thirty per cent of the world IT market, European industry provides only ten per cent of this market. For further details of the programme, contact Mr W Colin, IT Task Force, 200 Rue de la Loi, B 1049 Brussels, Belgium, tel 235 4477 or 235 2348, telecopier 230 1203, tx 25946.