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The use of public discipline by the FSA, usually accompanied by the imposition of a fine, has become familiar to readers of the financial press. To date the assumption has been that the use of publicity assists the FSA in achieving its objective of encouraging the development of a compliance culture. However, the time that many cases take to reach a conclusion can significantly weaken the impact upon other firms’ behaviour and could deter people from making investments. The FSA must ensure that its public discipline is proportionate to the offence and in order to have maximum effect should be delivered quickly.

This paper sets out some of the issues facing a firm in attempting to reduce the costs of compliance and concentrates on the operations performed by a firm's supervision teams and their interaction with the supervisors from the Financial Services Authority (FSA). It concentrates on those areas in which evidence suggests that the greatest opportunities for gain exist or where in fact firms permit the most significant inefficiencies to remain. The developments within compliance have been considerable over the last few years and while standards have risen so have the costs associated with demonstrating compliance with the relevant requirements. Firms must ensure that their supervision departments are operating efficiently and this means a return to basics. The compliance plan is an essential requirement but must be monitored and reviewed in order to ensure that targets are being achieved and resources concentrated upon the higher areas of risk. The greatest potential for additional cost has its origins in the visits undertaken by the inspectors from the FSA. Without careful planning, adequate resourcing and presentation of material it is very easy for the FSA to misconstrue the extent of a particular issue, or misunderstand the context in which the issue exists within the business. The opportunity for minimising additional costs arising from a routine visit from the FSA lies in the hands of the firm but many seemingly miss the warning signs. When things go wrong, firms often feel that they are at the mercy of the FSA. In fact there are a number of steps that a firm can take to either minimise the potential for escalation of an issue and to mitigate the costs even if a transfer to enforcement actually materialises.

The expectations of investors, regulators, and indeed management towards the compliance department are changing. For compliance to evolve, management must review its current operations and align its processes more closely with the desires and needs of the stakeholders. With regulators pushing firms to adopt a risk‐based approach to compliance, a greater degree of real‐time performance monitoring will be required. All of the stakeholders will desire more detailed reporting that an organization’s operations are being conducted in accordance with its regulatory and other obligations. The necessity to comply with a wider variety of controls suggests that an organization should adopt a common approach to the management of its obligations, which in turn may lead to a greater convergence among compliance, risk management, and corporate governance methodologies. The organization should ensure that all of those charged with development of control mechanisms are operating to a consistent standard and then separate the compliance function into three separate parts: (1) business as usual monitoring; (2) forward planning for new regulatory initiatives, products, markets, or client groups; and (3) education and embedding compliance within business units.

As the problems of living under stress grow, so methods for dealing with them proliferate. How effective are they? Leslie Kenton examines the claims of Transcendental Meditation which, despite its hippie‐induced esotericism, is attracting more and more recruits from the business world, while Chris Phillips spent an evening talking to executives who have taken a course in Relaxation for Living.

This paper aims to offer a critical biography of Joan Woodward, often considered the founder of contingency theory. This paper examines Woodward’s background to develop a more complete understanding of the factors that influenced her work.

This paper draws on insights gained from personal correspondence with two colleagues of Woodward, one who recruited her to the Imperial College where she conducted her most prominent work and one whom she recruited while at the college. In addition, Woodward’s original work, academic literature, published remembrances and a plethora of other secondary sources are reviewed.

By connecting these otherwise disparate sources of information, a more complete understanding of Woodward’s work and its context is provided. It is argued that Woodward’s education, training, brilliance, values, the relative weakness of British sociology and the need to improve the economy helped to make Woodward’s work both original and practical.

The originality of this work is to examine the work of Woodward through the lens of critical biography. Despite Woodward’s contributions, Woodward remains an underappreciated figure. The purpose is to provide her contribution against the backdrop of the British industrial and educational sphere.

This paper involves an examination of public sector managers attitudes and reported behaviour, based on a longitudinal UK study, which broadly corresponds with the so‐called ‘Thatcher Years’. In Britain, the ‘Thatcherite critique’ of public enterprise has been fundamental in its consequences with ideological, economic and industrial relations components which are interrelated but which have had varying priorities attached to them at particular points in time. Above all, public ownership has been opposed because it has been seen to involve the government in economic functions which were considered properly to lie with individuals in the private sector. More specifically, too, public sector enterprises have been seen as inherently bureaucratic, as ‘crowding out’ enterprise, as being inefficient and costly and because of their monopolistic position (and consequent insulation from market and performance pressures) as being the seedbed of trade union power.

The purpose of this editorial is to review the significance of Roger Undy's book, Trade Union Merger Strategies: Purpose, Process and Performance, Oxford University Press, 2008.

The editorial outlines and evaluates the arguments put forward by Dr Undy to explain why trade union mergers take place. It also evaluates the book's analysis of the politics of trade union mergers.

As trade union membership has declined mergers have been prominent features in strategies of union revival. Yet, there is little empirical research into the effects of mergers on the unions actually merging or on their impact on the wider union movement. Dr Undy concludes that mergers do not provide a solution to the problem of falling membership and that transfers of engagements are often more successful than amalgamations.

The editorial offers insights into the process, performance and effects of trade union mergers.

During the year 5,399 samples were taken under the Food and Drugs Act. Of these, 398 (7·4 per cent.) were against, as adulterated, below standard, or incorrectly labelled. The remainder, 1,173 samples, included water, 602, pasteurized milk 400—eight of these indicated a slight, technical error in preparation, and three “gross error.” Soot gauges 24. The total number of milk samples examined during the year was 2,844—excluding those just mentioned. Of these, 9·9 per cent. were found to be adulterated. This percentage of adulteration or for non‐compliance with the legal limit of 8·5 per cent. non‐fatty solids and 3 per cent. is the highest for six years. It is remarked that the freezing point test shows that the milks were naturally low in solids not fat. This would seem to be due to the cumulative effect during the last few years of feeding‐stuffs shortage, though the average annual composition of samples taken has varied but little during the war years and compares favourably with pre‐war milks. The Public Analyst points out that 9·9 per cent. does not mean that 9·9 per cent. of the Birmingham milk is adulterated, as more than one sample was taken from vendors whose milk was under suspicion. Tables given show that the average composition for all milks and farmers' milk were identical. The prosecutions call for no very extended comment. The milk cooler—that great source of surprises—was in each case found to be in working order. The cows were in “good heart.” In one case the cowman was fined £3 for adding water. The farmer, for not exercising due diligence under Section 83 of the Food and Drugs Act, was fined £20 on each of six summonses issued against him, £120 in all, with £1 costs. The farmer seems to have been, and probably still is, a hopeless case. He had been fined £30 and costs in 1940, and £580 with £46 costs in 1942. About £750 in all! We suppose he still carries on, but what about the consumers! Baking powder and self‐raising flour were reported against for carbon dioxide deficiency. This was apparently due to the use of old stock. The vendors were cautioned. Old stock—at least we suppose age to be the explanation—is also distinguished in other ways: cheese, infested with mites, unfit for consumption; cocoa, mouldy, and paper wrapper contained book lice; coffee, contained a mass of cobwebs; lentils, grubs and mite eggs; and so on. The immediate origin of another dealer's wrapping paper would seem to have been the coal scuttle since paper, lard and butter were speckled with coal particles. The Veterinary Inspector was requested to visit all the places of sale which would seem to be half‐way houses to the hospital for the consumer. An interesting point is raised in the matter of a sample labelled “lemon flavour.” This delicacy consisted of a 6 per cent. solution of citric acid, containing in suspension a small amount of starchy matter to make it look like lemon juice. It was flavoured with oil of lemon and contained 118 parts per million of sulphur dioxide. As the Preservatives Regulations forbid the introduction of sulphur dioxide into an article of this kind the firm was written, and replied that they considered the article to be “an unsweetened cordial, and that therefore sulphur dioxide was allowed up to 600 parts per million” (italics ours). The relevant Section referred to states: “Non‐alcoholic wines, cordials and fruit juices, sweetened and unsweetened, 350 (not 600) parts per million sulphur dioxide or 600 parts per million benzoic acid.” The Public Analyst points out that in the final report of the Departmental Committee on the use of preservatives in foods (1924) a comma appears after the word cordials in the above (italics ours) “making it clear that the words sweetened or unsweetened refer only to fruit juices, and that no such article as an unsweetened cordial is recognised. Such a description is a contradiction in terms, for the essential ingredient of a non‐alcoholic cordial is sugar.” The Ministry of Food was written and their attention called to the apparent omission of the comma in the published text of the Preservatives Regulations, and drawing attention to the fact that whether the omission were unintentional or deliberate the result was to permit the use of preservative in an instance where the committee of experts appointed do not choose to make such a recommendation. The Ministry in their reply did not reply to this question, but said the firm had no licence to manufacture the flavouring but asked for particulars of sale. The soot gauges show on the whole a steady decline in atmospheric smoke pollution. The average amount of insoluble matter expressed in tons per square mile per month. The Central Station figures are 13·5 in 1945. It was 37·6 in 1936. The West Heath Station 4·9 in 1945. It was 10·9 in 1938. Satisfactory as far as the reduction in atmospheric pollution goes. May it continue.