Oxford University Press Annual report of the Delegates, 2003/2004

"Even if, implausibly, OUP were able to persuade the [Charity] Commisioners that teaching the Chinese to speak English is a legitimate charitable aim within the remit of the University of Oxford (in which case it would be a legitimate charitable aim for anyone else), nothing could be inferred from this about the shifting, or flogging, of pallets of paper... This distinction between education and book-trading becomes especially clear in our new Internet Age: if the University's and its Press's aims are purely charitable and educational, why don't they simply download all of their teaching materials onto a free Chinese website?" - The Remedy, page 254. In the Vice-Chancellor's and the Chief Executive's reports below, Akme has highlighted two key, notably strident (provocative?) paragraphs in bold maroon.

Contents (printed page numbering)
03 Foreword by the Vice-Chancellor
04 Report of the Secretary to the Delegates
06 Geographic Reports: UK, USA, Europe,International Branches
10 Publishing Report: Scholarly and Professional
12 Reference, Higher Education
14 Trade, Music
15 Schools, English Language Teaching
18 Preamble to Financial Report
19 Abstracts of the Combined Balance Sheet of the Trading Operations as at 31/3/2004 (+2003, restated), plus the year's Combined Results
20 Abstract of the Statement of Recognized Gains and Losses of the Trading Operations for the year ended 31/3/2004 (+2003)
21 Abstract the Combined Balance Sheet of the Delegates' Property and Reserve Fund as at 31/3/2004 (+2003)
22 Abstract of the Combined Statement of Financial Activities of the Delegates' Property and Reserve Fund for the year to 31/3/2004 (+2003)
23 Lists of OUP Delegates, Finance and Strategy Committees (or click for a separate file)
24 List of prizes awarded during 2003/04 (not transcribed)
26-46 List of scholarly and professional books published during 2003/04 (not transcribed)

Homily on back cover:: Oxford University Press is a Department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Foreword by the Vice-Chancellor

Worldwide publishing continues to further our scholarly mission

The Press had a successful year in 2003/04. It continued to produce high-quality and innovative publishing across its range of businesses, and at the same time delivered a strong financial result.

A particular highlight was the publication of the first phase of Oxford Scholarship Online, only three years after the project was initiated, and a year after the system 'build' began. This huge database of more than 700 cross-indexed and cross-referenced monographs has been enthusiastically received by librarians, researchers, and teachers. It is a refreshing approach to publishing scholarly monographs; it is an important experiment for the academic and library community; and it is an initiative that only Oxford University Press has the resources to launch.

The Press's print output has, however, not decreased. More than 1,300 new scholarly titles were published during 2003/04; the long list of publications at the end of this report testifies again to the Press's success in fulfilling its mission to 'further the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.'

The financial contribution made by the Press has become increasingly important to the rest of the University in recent years. Last year the value of the guaranteed minimum annual transfer was increased to £12 million. I am extremely pleased to report that the actual transfer for 2003/04 was well in excess of that minimum at £17.8 million, with an in-kind contribution of a further £0.7 million.

In the Delegacy Ralph Walker retired after 10 years. He was instrumental in helping to make the Press the leading scholarly philosophy publisher in the world. The rigour and clarity of his thinking will be missed. He is succeeded by Roger Crisp. We also appointed a third external member of Finance Committee: David Levin, chief executive of Symbian.

Sir Colin Lucas
Vice-Chancellor
University of Oxford

Report of the Secretary to the Delegates

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OUP maintains creditable performance despite currency volatility

The Press conducts over 80 per cent of its business outside the UK and, as a result, has more exposure to currency movements than do many other businesses. In 2003/04 this exposure, particularly to the weakness of the US dollar, was highlighted more than in previous years. Our sales of £388.7 million showed a like-for-like growth of 6.2 per cent, even though the headline figure indicates a 1 per cent decline on 2002/03 sales, which included an additonal (sic) three months of journals sales. To give an idea of the scale of the movements, our turnover for 2002/03 of £392.5 million is reduced to £374.5 million at latest exchange rates, an adjustment of 5 per cent. In the context of this currency volatility, alongside the continued economic downturn in the USA and the outbreak of SARS in Asia early in the year, this was a creditable performance. It compares well with the published results of both our scholarly and commercial competitors.

The Academic Division had another excellent year with some remarkable publishing successes, solid sales growth, and a noteworthy increase in surplus. Higher education, law, medicine, reference, and academic trade titles all performed well. The Journals Division did extremely well to meet their original sales budget in the year that saw the bankruptcy of one of the main subscription agents, RoweCom, at the height of the renewal season. Demand for our online journals is increasing rapidly and we have been particularly successful in signing deals with library consortia worldwide. Our journals business has also led the way in experimenting with open access models in the journal Nucleic Acids Research: an initiative that is totally appropriate for in organization such as the Press, which is part of the scholarly community.

Like the rest of the US publishing industry, we experienced difficulties in our main markets: libraries, retail stores, and higher education. Cuts in state budgets continued to damage libraries' ability to acquire; throughout most of the year the retail market suffered the effects of a weak economy with stores reluctant to take chances on new titles and with returns remaining extremely high; and the higher education market experienced lower growth than it has in the last eight years. In the first full year of the newly acquired Grove Dictionaries of Music and Art, sales of the online versions performed strongly but print sales were affected by funding cuts.

The International Division produced its best set of results ever. Kenya and South Africa had exceptionally good years with strong performances from Australia, China, India, Malaysia, and Pakistan. The majority of this growth came from local schools markets supported by dictionary publishing, and higher education publishing in selected markets. In India and Pakistan we continue to publish the leading titles on South Asian history, politics, literature, and economics.

UK schools experienced a funding crisis in 2003/04, which led to a 12 per cent decline in spending on primary textbooks and a 7 per cent decline in secondary book spending. In these tough conditions the UK Education Division performed well in actually growing its primary sales and substantially increasing its market share on the back of the updated Oxford Reading Tree scheme. We saw substantial growth in our sales of electronic resources to schools because of the ring-fenced funding provided by the government. There is a perverse irony in the government's refusal to provide funding specifically for textbooks, which most schools desperately need, while it over-funds the provision of electronic resources which most schools regard as nice-to-have extras.

The ELT Division had another year of solid sales growth which produced a record-breaking net result. We continue to win market share despite greater competition from international and regional publishers, and in the context of ongoing uncertainty surrounding educational reforms in a number of markets. Italy, Spain, Turkey, Eastern Europe, and Asia all performed well. The US market was weaker than usual because of cuts in government programmes.

Our business in Spain established itself in 2003/04 as one of the country's leading schoolbook publishers. Building on the base of our success in ELT, we have created in six years a Spanish language textbook business that is the third largest secondary publisher in the industry. We experienced very strong growth in Spanish publishing while ELT maintained its commanding position in a year of limited change in the market.

The post-tax surplus of the Press increased from £58 million in 2002/03 to £60.6 million in 2003/04. It is worth highlighting that the figure of £58 million for 2002/03 included £8 million of non-recurring items; on a like-for-like basis, therefore, the figures show a 21 per cent increase. All the Press's operating divisions, with the exception of OUP USA which had a difficult year, delivered their budgeted surplus: this was a result achieved in part by steady sales growth but also by strong and effective management which has been instrumental in achieving further improvements in key operating ratios. This record level of trading surplus has been underpinned by very good cash generation.

University presses have suffered particularly badly in recent years. They have been exposed to the steadily declining market for scholarly monographs and the problem last year in the USA of cuts in state budgets for the funding of university and public libraries. We occupy a unique position amongst university presses. We publish more scholarly monographs than anyone else and more than we used to (10 per cent more in 2003/04 than five years ago). We also publish across an extraordinarily broad range of subjects and market levels. The worldwide spread of our operations is unrivalled. And the expansion of the Press in recent years has been such that the scale of our undertakings is more than three times that of the next largest university press in the world, Cambridge.

This diversity could be seen as a disadvantage: it potentially causes dilution of our investment where others might better concentrate their energies through publishing with a narrower focus. On the other hand, some of the benefits of such diversity can be seen in the results of the Press this year: for example the going has been tough in US institutional and consumer markets, and the UK and Canadian schoolbook markets. Sales in these markets suffered as a result but overall performance was bolstered by strong performances by our businesses in Spain, Italy, East Africa, and South Africa where we achieved remarkable growth in our publishing for schools. In this respect the scale and breadth of the Press's operations is a great strength.

It is also important to emphasize how the Press's consistent level of success in its educational publishing (in particular its ELT and school publishing programmes) has underpinned the Press's core scholarly mission. Almost all of the Press's academic and scholarly publishing is centred in the Academic and Journals Divisions in Oxford, in OUP USA in New York, and in our branches in India and Pakistan. We do not expect this publishing to be loss-making in overall terms but without the financial success that has come from educational publishing the Press would not generate sufficient funds to support its long- term, large-scale scholarly and reference publishing. In 2003/04 the costs of subventing the Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography were £6.4 million. We have committed £2 million to the development of Oxford Scholarship Online which we launched in late 2003 to an enthusiastic response from the library and scholarly community. The Delegates would find it difficult (if not impossible) to sanction investment in these publishing initiatives, which are so important to the needs of the scholarly community, without the confidence that comes from the financial strength of the Press.

Over and above its publishing investment, in recent years the Press has been providing substantial and increasing financial support for the rest of the University. The guaranteed minimum annual transfer was initially set at £9 million in 1999 and was increased in 2003 to £12 million. Strong financial performance has allowed the Press to exceed this amount in every year since 1999. Transfers are calculated on the combined results of the Trading Operations and the Delegates' Property and Reserve Fund, and are set out here for the last five years. In 2002/03 the Effective Operating Reserve (EOR) was run down by the special transfer of £60 million to enhance the academic mission of the University. The rebuilding of the liquid funds in the EOR was seen as a priority and I am pleased to be able to report that we are well on the way to this target with the EOR standing at £42.8 million at the end of 2003/04. We are likely to achieve the goal of restoring the reserve to full funding (c. £60 million) by the end of 2004/05. The annual transfer for 2004/05, based on this year's results, will be £21.4 million.

Henry Reece
Secretary to the Delegates and Chief Executive.

Geographic Report 1. UK

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The year 2003/04 was a successful one for the Academic Division in the UK market, as all publishing departments exceeded the previous year's sales. Higher Education (HE) was the best performer: good new publishing and significant investment in the sales team ensured double-digit sales growth. Sales of law textbooks were especially strong. In Reference, last year's rebranding of the dictionaries range continued to bear fruit with excellent sales of all titles, particularly The Oxford Dictionctary of English 2/e. This year we rebrandcd the Oxford Paperback Reference series, which successfully increased its profile and market share. There was strong support from retailers for the promotion of the Very Short Introductions, which celebrated the publication of the one hundredth title in the series. The BBC Big Read dramitically lifted sales of the Oxford World's Classics.

Sales in the UK trade were helped by excellent new publishing. Simon Winchester's The Meaning of Everything was a bestseller while Roy Foster's W. B. Yeats: A Life II. T77c Arch-Poet 1915-1939 received extraordinarily favourable reviews and sold very well. The market for our scholarly books remained tough, but sales held up.

We also did well in professional markets. The Oxford Medical Handbooks series continued to expand and increase sales, particularly to the pharmaceutical market. In law, our list of titles for practising lawyers flourished.

However, the UK schools market experienced a deep and painftil funding crisis in 2003/04. Many schools found themselves with insufficient funds to cover the required increases in National Insurance and pension contributions, along with the new teacher threshold payments. Purchases of textbooks inevitably suffered as schools struggled to balance their budgets. The Educational Publishers Council reported a 12 per cent decline in spending on Primary books in 2003 and a 7 per cent decline in Secondary book spending.

In spite of these tough conditions the UK Education Division managed to grow home primary schoolbook sales by 3 per cent - a very significant achievement in the steeply declining market. 2003 saw our primary market share rise from 16 to 18 per cent. Our primary publishing is focused on the literacy area where we are market leaders and where our share increased from 26 to over 29 per cent. Secondary had a steadier year, holding its market share as our overall sales performance tracked the market. Within the sector our Key Stage 3 Maths programme performed particularly well.

Additional funding in the form of Electronic Learning Credits for Curriculum Online continues to be injected into English primary and secondary schools. This money is ring-fenced for them to spend on interactive electronic content for the classroom and computer suites. As a result we almost doubled our sales of software and subscription websites over the previous year.

Sales of children's books and school dictionaries through the UK high street, to both traditional booksellers and non-book retailers, held up very well in a highly competitive market. The move to front-list promotions at the cost of backlist support continued, and supermarket chains have left core bookselling chains such as W H Smith struggling to find a new direction. Promotional support for our Children's list was very strong, and our dictionary list gained market share in the trade.

Picture caption: During 2003/04 we restored and refurbished the Delegates' Room in the Clarendon Building. The Delegates of the University Press have met in this room since the building, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, was first opened in 1713.

Geographic Report 2. USA

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For most of the year the US economy showed few signs of improving, and we experienced difficulties in three of our main markets: libraries, bookstores, and schools.

Libraries continued to suffer from state budget cuts, which had an adverse effect on reference sales despite the addition of the Grove Dictionaries of Art and Music. But even as reference print sales suffered, we more than doubled sales in the area we targeted for heavy investment - online reference.

All publishers in the journals market suffered as the bankruptcy of one of the main subscription agents, RoweCom, resulted in disruption and lost sales.

The retail sector continued to suffer from the effects of the stalled economy, with only huge bestsellers driving the small amount of reported growth. For the third year in a row, we enjoyed watching two of our publications hit the bestseller list, contributing to good trade hardcover sales.

Sales of academic and professional books were slightly above last year's and slightly below budget. A strong performance from our print-on-demand (POD) programme contributed to solid backlist sales; POD sales are now approaching 10 per cent of overall sales. As backlist sales in the professional area, especially in psychology, continued to arow, frontlist sales in the humanities slowed, owing in part to a shortfall in major new copyrights and to ordering patterns which are causing the traditional sharp bell curve of sales for academic books to flatten.

Paperbacks had a considerably more difficult year as the trend continued towards lower advance orders from retail accounts, combined with significantly higher returns than last year. We saw the impact of Barnes &, Noble's proprietary publishing on our Oxford World's Classics series, as sales to that account dropped by nearly 5 per cent.

Most surprisingly, the higher education market, which for the past decade has shown consistent 7 per cent annual growth, experienced a slowdown in the rate of growth with flat sales from April 2003 to March 2004. After years of absorbing healthy price increases, there were indications of price resistance and we saw record returns. This sector is expected to rebound, but not until 2005.

Geographic Report 3. Europe

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Academic sales in Europe saw good overall growth, with most publishing ireas exceeding last year's sales.

The library market has been particularly tough. Nevertheless, sales of the Grove Dictionaries of Art and Music were encouraging, particularly in Germany, and sales of the new edition of the Spanish Dictionary have been above expectations.

Our best performing markets for academic publishing have been the Netherlands, Eastern Europe, and Germany. Growth in Germany means that we are outperforming the market and is encouraging given the tough economic climate in the country. In the German English Language Teaching (ELT) market, sales of the market-specific Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary showed a very good increase. We also launched a new bilingual English/German dictionary, Das Grosse Oxford Wurterbuch.

In Spain, 2003/04 saw the crucial list phase of the secondary and upper secondary educational reform that was first implemented in 2002. ELT consolidated its number one market position and delivered campaigns for readers and dictionaries that generated record sales of these products. Growth of Oxford Educacion, our Spanish language schoolbooks list, was spectacular: OUP is now the market leader in physics, chemistry, and technology in secondary, and Spanish language and literature in Bachillerato.

OUP Spain has also been active in promoting the Academic Division's range of Spanish bilingual dictionaries and we are increasing our share of this important market.

Italy was an extremely successful market for ELT. We exceeded expectations, significantly outperformed the market and posted market share gains in all segments. We achieved this through new publishing and the creative marketing of our backlist.

The Greek market saw the introduction of an exclusive distribution arrangement for our ELT titles, following many years of working on an open market basis. Our new contract with the well-known Greek distributor, Efstathiadis, will give us clearer visibility of sales and stock as we increase our promotion of an expanding market-specific list.

Sales growth across Eastern Europe was excellent. Our ELT businesses in the Czech Republic, Hungary, ind Slovenia performed particularly well. OUP Turkey enjoyed a better than expected year owing to the continuing availability of sales to our core segment which had been at risk during the year as a result of new government initiatives - and the surprising stabilization of the Turkish lira.

Geographic Report 4. International Branches

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As the year began political instability in several International Division territories was causing concern; reductions in funding, particularly in aid-dependent countries, seemed a definite possibility, and we thought that SARS might cause a serious downturn in China and possibly in other markets. In fact, SARS appeared to have little effect on sales in China, aid money held up, and the International Division produced its best result ever. Sales growth saw a substantial double-digit increase over the previous year and the net result reached an unprecedented level.

In Australia/New Zealand an unexpected, but well-deserved, tender for Papua New Guinea contributed to the increase in sales over budget. The local secondary school list performed well and we saw a good increase in local higher education titles. For the first time ever Oxford dictionaries became the market leader, with a market share of over 50 per cent.

It was a tough year in Canada as government funding for schoolbooks was severely decreased in the largest province. After several boom years, school sales fell dramatically. Problems in the only retail chain meant that the trade division could not meet budget. Fortunately the local and imported Higher Education lists performed well: sales grew by 9 per cent, although this was not enough to offset the downturn in the other divisions. The ELT market in Canada (like that in Australia/New Zealand) suffered when visa students were denied entry during and even after the SARS crisis.

Sales and profitability in China rebounded after a couple of tough years. New secondary science and geography books performed well to give the branch higher sales than budgeted. The branch also conducted a successful campaign, called 'Speak Better English', to promote ELT titles. Licensing income from both print and electronic dictionaries in mainland China helped contribute to a very good bottom line.

We saw sales growth in all divisions in India. Majo new school courses were published in ELT and maths. A local Higher Education list was launched with the publication of three engineering and three business and management titles. Over 200 titlcs were published in the prestigious Academic/Trade list. As usual these included several prizewinners.

The performance of our Kenyan branch was one of the highlights of the year. In response to the introduction of a new curriculum for three years of schooling, we published, had approved, and sold books for every course. Sales increased by 127 per cent and profitability was excellent. Our small editorial team also prepared books for the second phase of new curriculum implementation planned for next year.

Malaysia has seen impressive sustained growth for several years and 2003/04 was no exception. We continued to benefit from the opportunities offered by the new curriculum, as well as the switch to English as the medium of instruction for all senior maths and science courses. Guidebooks and sixth-form textbooks also performed well.

It was a year of refocusing and reorganizing in Mexico. Results were disappointing but criticil decisions were made about the future direction of this branch. We shall continue to focus on selling imported ELT titles (which performed well this year), and we shall restrict local publishing to higher-education law textbooks and core schoolbooks.

Despite a volatile environment, our branch in Pakistan increased sales by 12 per cent and produced an excellent surplus. In a bold move, most customers were dealt with on a cash-only basis. The demand for OUP books was such that this had no effect on sales and cash flow was impressive.

Sales growth in South Africa was outstanding. A new, well-funded curriculum for the first four grades of primary school provided a huge opportunity for sales growth. Our new schoolbooks had an approval rating of over 90 per cent and we increased market share by 6 per cent - leading to an 80 per cent increase in sales.

In Tanzania, we moved out of a condemned building to splendid new premises. A new course for English was published and approved and is selling well into primary schools. Our smallest branch made budget and saw a good improvement in profitability.

The year 2004 is cause for celebration in two parts of the International Division. OUP Kenya turns 50 and OUP Canada - the oldest branch - marks its centennial year!

The ELT International Division had a good year. While SARS resulted in widespread school closures in the early part of the year, particularly in Taiwan, the Asian region achieved its budgct as a result of exceptionally strong sales to Thailand and Vietnam, where Let's Go! has been widely adopted within the state school system.

OUP Japan achieved a respectable sales increase during the year as a result of some additional ordering by the Nova chain of language schools and some strong promotion of our growing adult American English (AMELT) list.

American Headway, which was completed during the year, has grown from strength to strength in Latin America, with particularly good sales in both Mexico and Brazil. OUP Brazil consolidated its position in the market, vying with Macmillan for position is market leader. A new mini bilingual English/Portuguese dictionary was launched during the year to add to the growing list of bilinguals in our catalogue.

The Argentine ELT market showed signs of improvement as the economy slowly continued to strengthen. During the course of the year, OUP Argentina moved to a one-site office and warehouse which was fully operational for the main sales campaign. It was pleasing to see the ELT market inArgentina buying dictionaries again in substantial quantities.

Picture caption: The Rt Hon Chris Patten, Chancellor of the University of Oxford, visited Oxford University Press on the day after Encaenia. He is pictured (centre) with Henry Reece, Secretary to the Delegates and Chief Executive (left), and Roger Boning, Group Finance Director (right).

Publishing Report 1. Scholarly and Professional

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Our two major centres for scholarly and professional publishing are in the UK and the USA. There are also scholarly lists in OUP India and OUP Pakistan.

A highlight of the year was the publication of Oxford Scholarship Online, which contains the full text of over 700 monographs, 8,000 abstracts, 100,000 keywords, and several thousand live links to other online resources. A number of university libraries in the UK, Europe, Australasia, and North America are already subscribing, and a great many more are currently running trials. Reviews have been excellent, with the Library Journal (the journal of the American Library Association), reporting: 'For ease of use, user-friendly design, and quality texts, Oxford Scholarship Online is among the best I have ever used.'

Among the scholarly titles of general interest was the magisterial concluding volume of Roy Foster's biography, W B. Yeats: A Life, which received widespread critical acclaim. It was described by Seamus Heaney as 'A masterwork... One of the great biographies, as affectionate as it is scholarly'.

Our list of prestigious series is a cornerstone of OUP's scholarly publishing. This year we added Geoffrey Searle's A New England? Peace and War 1886-1918 (New Oxford History of England), praised as an extraordinarily accomplished work of synthesis, and the long-awaited and definitive edition by R. J. Tarrant of Ovid's Metamorphoses (Oxford Classical Texts). The second pair of volumes in the Oxford English Literary History were Bruce King's 1948-2000: The Internationalization of English Literature and Randall Stevenson's 1960-2000: The Last of England? , which stirred up some critical controversy between rival supporters of Larkin and Prynne. We also launched a new series with the first two volumes of The Oxford History of the Laws of England.

The Maths list published the long-awaited second edition of Introduction to Complex Analysis by H. A. Priestley, which has become one of the leading UK teaching texts in its field since it was first published in 1985.

Other publishing reflected many of today's hot topics, with Julian Le Grand's much discussed contribution to current debates about social policy, Motivation, Agency, and Public Policy, and Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser's Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe, which looks at the different approaches to the problems of domestic inequality and poverty. David Harvey's The New Imperialism was pronounced 'a profound, and profoundly disturbing, book... mounting a stunning indictment of our present institutions of power, while offering hopeful insights about how these institutions could be changed'.

New publishing also included a critically acclaimed biography of Yasir Arafat, Barbara Rogoff's landmark The Cultural Nature of Human Development, sociologist Loic Wacquant's long-awaited Body and Soul: Notes of an Apprentice Boxer, Nelson Polsby's How Congress Evolved, Joel Blair's The Dynamics of Social Welfare, and several handbooks, among them The Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies, The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, and The Oxford Handbook of Practical Ethics.

Our Academic list in India is very well regarded. This year we published the Oxford India Collection, which includes the Oxford India Ghalib, edited by Ralph Russell, a complete Ghalib compendium with both biography and poetry; The Oxford India Ramanujan, edited by Molly Ramanujan, the first-ever collection of Ramanujan's poems and translations in one volume; and The Oxford India Premchand.

In medicine we published the Oxford Textbook of Primary Care, edited by Professor Roger Jones and an international team, and the third edition of the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine, the pre-eminent textbook in its field. In the USA, a notable new signing, in the face of heavy competition, was the tenth edition of the American Medical Association's prestigious Manual of Style.

We are investing heavily in our US Medical Publishing programme, particularly in the areas of psychology, neuropsychology, and neuroscience.

There were a number of legal publishing highlights. English Public Law, edited by David Feldman, provides the counterpoise to the two volumes of English Private Law published in 2000. Trademark Law: A Practical Anatomy by Jeremy Phillips makes a significant contribution to the area of intellectual property law. Stephen Cretney's Family Law in the 20th Century was described as 'a truly remarkable book' and 'a staggering and triumphant achievement'. The Oxford Handbook of Legal Studies takes an international and comparative approach to legal scholarship in key substantive areas, the process of law-making and the changing contexts to legal research.

We published six new journals in 2003/04. Four of these were new launches (Journal of International Criminal Justice, International Journal of Constitutional Law, Journal of Financial Econometrics, and Socio-Economic Review), and two journals were taken on from other publishers (Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and Molecular Biology and Evolution).

We now publish over 180 journals in total, almost all of which are available simultaneously in both print and online editions. This has enabled us to begin to offer our customers a wide range of choices concerning access to the material that we are publishing. Individual titles may be purchased in print or online formats (or a combination of the two). In addition libraries may purchase online access to a number of subject collections of journals, or the entire corpus, at heavily discounted prices. We also offer pay-per-view facilities for purchase of individual articles, reduced rate subscriptions for individual scholars and researchers, and free or heavily discounted subscriptions to libraries from developing countries.

Over the past year we have continued to invest in improving our online publishing and IT infrastructure systems and this investment, together with our international reach and flexible pricing policies, has led to an increase of 250 per cent in the total number of online article downloads over the past two years (from 9 million in 2001 to 23 million in 2003).

Publishing Report 2. Reference

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Despite a challenging market for traditional books, it was an excellent year for reference publishing in both the USA and the IJK. We saw significant sales growth fuelled by a full year of Grove Dictionaries, a strong performance from Oxford Reference Online, a successful 75th anniversary campaign for the OED in the USA, steady growth in dictionaries, two big new scholarly reference copyrights, and a number of popular children's and young adult titles.

'Run (virtually), do not walk, to the Oxford University Press web site and sign up for a trial of the new Premium Reference Collection ...' So said Library Journal about the new Oxford Reference Online Premium Collection launched in November.

The Premium Collection enhances the 100-plus books already in the Core Collection with an expanded range of key Oxford Companions and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. This means that there are an additional 70,000 entries, including 50,000 longer, in-depth, signed entries with bibliographies. The Premium Collection has been received enthusiastically worldwide, with hundreds of trials under way.

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the OED, OUP USA launched a massive campaign for the 20-volume set, as well as the whole range of American dictionaries. The American range received a new livery, special promotions, and a huge amount of publicity in conjunction with the OED anniversary, and the OED enjoyed a 40 per cent increase in sales, confirming that classic print references can still sell.

In general, though, the market for print reference continued to be difficult. This was particularly noticeable where we published print and online editions of the same title. Library sales of Grove Music online, for example, outstripped those of the Grove Dictionary of Music 2/e print edition. However, two new scholarly reference publications were very well received: the Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, edited by Joel Mokyr, and the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature, edited by Jay Parini.

In the UK, the Academic Division's dictionaries are now in their second year of a successful rebranding which emphasizes the parentage of the OED and the University association. The year's most important publication was the new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English, our top-of-the-range, single-volume dictionary. Our growth in electronic markets continues, and, through our licence arrangements with Seiko, Oxford dictionaries are now the UK leader in electronic handheld form.

The second edition of the Oxford Spanish Dictionary has confirmed its position as the world's best-selling unabridged Spanish dictionary, with excellent sales in Spain, the USA, and the UK. Our top-level bilingual dictionaries have also featured an innovative text-to-speech CD-ROM which provides pronunciation for any word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph in high-quality synthesized speech.

Other highlights in the reference list were the Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion, the new edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, and the beautifully illustrated New Encyclopedia of Birds, edited by Christopher Perrins.

The UK Education Division's school dictionaries continued to do well in a number of very different markets. In the UK trade, the Christmas highlight was the launch of the First Illustrated Dictionary illustrated by the award-winning artist Emma Chichester Clark and endorsed by the first children's laureate, Quentin Blake. New editions of successful core dictionaries were published for the UK schools market, notably rebranded editions of the Oxford Reading Tree Dictionary and our entire school bilingual dictionary range. For our export markets two special dictionary editions were prepared - one for Botswana (Oxford Very First Dictionary), and the second for the Kingston Bookshop, Jamaica (Oxford Student's Dictionary).

Children's reference highlights included the updated editions of two core titles - the Oxford Illustrated Encyclopedia and the Oxford Illustrated Science Encyclopedia - whilst our long-running and highly successful Teenage Health Freak series was supplemented with two new titles dealing with sex and drugs.

The most important addition to the US Young Adult list was Our Documents: 100 Landmark Documents from the National Archives, produced in record time for the reopening of the National Archives rotunda in Washington D.C. Other noteworthy young adult publications included a biography of Thomas Jefferson by Richard Bernstein that was hailed by the New York Times as 'the best short biography of Jefferson ever written', and the first two volumes of The World in Ancient Times, a new series designed for the middle school curriculum.

In the International Division, the fourth edition of the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary was launched in October. We also published the second edition of the Australian Modern Oxford Dictionary and a new Australian Mini Thesaurus. Sales of an integrated school dictionary and thesaurus for the school market tripled expectations.

In Canada we published at both ends of the reference spectrum. My First Canadian Oxford Dictionary and My First Cancidian Oxford Thesaurus were published for young children while we launched the Canadian Oxford Paperback Thesaurus, the first thesaurus published by OUP Canada, for adults.

Our branch in Malaysia published six local dictionaries and a long list of adapted dictionaries was published by OUP China for the Hong Kong market.

Publishing Report 3. Higher Education

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Higher education is a major growth area for OUP, with flourishing lists in the UK, USA, and many of the international branches.

In the UK we continued to focus on adding value to our textbooks through online resources. We launched our first 'test banks' (online multiple choice quizzes that students can use to check their understanding of an area of study) to accompany the new edition of our flagship economics title, Economics by Richard Lipsey and Alec Chiystal, and a new Introduction to Marketing text by Adrian Palmer.

We have a particular strength in law publishing, stimulated by our acquisition of the Blackstone Press law list in 2001. The Blackstone Study Packs were relaunched as textbooks with helpful pedagogical signposting and featuring the accompanying cases and materials on the companion website. The Blackstone Statutes series was published even earlier this year to meet bookshop and student needs and was launched in a larger format with a new text design. We published into the Text, Cases, and Materials series with the launch of a brand new Contract Law title by Ewan McKendrick and a new Criminal Law title by Jonathan Herring.

We signed new titles in marketing, employee relations, and finance, and published our first accounting textbook: Applied Financial Accounting and Reporting by Geoff Black. Other significant new titles across a range of disciplines included Arthur Lesk, Introduction to Protein Science, a new edition of Charles Freeman's Egypt, Greece and Rome, John W. Young and John Kent's International Relations Since 1945, Michelle Cini's European Union Politics, and David Boucher and Paul Kelly's Political Thinkers.

After years of strong growth, the US college market slowed down. Despite these tough market conditions, we successfully published a new introductory physical geography text by Harm de Blij, a new edition of our bestselling engineering text, Microelectronic Circuits by Adel Sedra, two new editions of interpersonal communication texts acquired from Thomson, and a new text on the New Testament by Bart Ehrman.

In Canada three major Canadian history texts were published - all by J. M. Bumsted: The Peoples of Canada: A Pre-Confederation History; The Peoples of Canada: A Post-Confederation History; and a one-volume History of the Canadian Peoples.

The branch entered into the competitive area of first-year sociology with a major textbook, Sociology by Lorne Tepperman and James Curtis.

OUP Australia/New Zealand received an excellent response to the second edition of Literacy by Gordon Winch et al. We are becoming the publisher of choice in health sciences with books such as Margaret Hamilton, Drug Use, Ken Jones, Health and Human Behaviour, An Introduction, and Sophie Couzos, Aboriginal Health Care 2/e. The law textbook list is also becoming well established.

OUP India launched a domestic HE publishing programme with three engineering titles - Technical Communication: Principles and Practice, Process Plant Simulation, and Fibre Optics and Optoelectronics - and three management titles Understanding Organizational Behaviour, Production and Operations Management, and Services Marketing.

OUP South Africa has a very well established HE list. During 2003/04 it published new editions of many of its major textbooks, including the tenth edition of Starting Your Own Business, the second edition of Marketing, the fifth edition of Paediatrics and Child Health, the sixth edition of Introduction to Business Management, and the sixth edition of Human Resources Management.

Publishing Report 4. Trade

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The most prominent trade title in 2003/04 was Simon Winchester's best-selling The Meaning of Everything, the story of the writing of the Oxford English Dictionary. Over 130,000 copies were sold worldwide, with very good sales in Australia and Canada, as well as the UK and USA.

Another bestseller was David Hackett Fischer's Washington's Crossing, which hit the New York Times bestseller list in February and was on the Boston Globe list for five weeks. Washington's Crossing sold 51,000 copies in 2003/04 and continues to be a strong seller. It is the second bestseller to emerge from our Pivotal Moments in American History series.

The Very Short Introductions continued to be successful. New titles published in the year included Schizophrenia, Atheism, Ethics, and Molecules, demonstrating the intellectual range and excitement of the series.

Oxford World's Classics also had a good year in the UK, helped by the profile given to classics by the BBC's Big Read. For some years we have been broadening the definition of a 'classic' by publishing a number of important, but not necessarily literary, works in this series. An example of this was our republication of the first edition of Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys, which was widely reviewed.

Other new books included Nigel Calder's Magic Universe, Max Jones' book on Scott, The Last Great Quest, and Felipe Fernandez-Armesto's So You Think You're Human? Meanwhile, the paperback edition of James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom returned to the Oxford list after a 12-year licence to Ballantine Books.

The Bible group had a particularly strong publishing year marked by the long-awaited release of the Jewish Study Bible. This publication is a major contribution to Bible scholarship and has been universally praised by the general media and religious publications of every denomination. Other notable publications were the New Pilgrim Study Bible, King James Version; the Scofield Study Bible, King James Version, and the Evangelical Parallel New Testament, three significant new resources for the burgeoning evangelical population in the United States.

Publishing Report 5. Music

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OUP continues to develop its strong catalogue of concert and educational music in Oxford and New York. The BBC has commissioned new works for the Promenade concerts from our American composers over two consecutive seasons: It I Am by Libby Larsen was very well received at the 2003 Proms and Zhou Long's The Immortal is to be premiered in 2004. Michael Berkeley's compositions found a broadening audience, particularly recently in Australia, and four CDs of his music have been released on the Chandos label, coinciding with his residency with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. We published John Rutter's major new work Mass of the Children, which will reinforce his reputation as the UK's most successful choral composer worldwide. Oxford's edition of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov was performed both at the Royal Opera in London and at the Metropolitin Opera in New York. Two recent educational titles, Fiddletime for young people learning the violin, and Voiceworks for singing in schools, becime UK bestsellers in their class.

Our list of music books now has a good mix of academic, professional, trade, reference, and higher education titles. The list continues to win major awards and praise from reviewers. The Economist called Who Needs Classical Music? by Julian Johnson a 'wise, perceptive and inspiring book'. Larry Todd's definitive biography of Mendelssohn landed a front cover review in the TLS, and Rudolph Serkin: A Life was spotlighted in the regular 'Curtain' feature in Symphony Magazine. We consolidated our partnership with the American Musicological Society and offered discounts to members through our website on both books and subscriptions to the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. A number of valuable copyrights were signed, including a history of choral music, a major biography of Glenn Gould, and a series of books of writings on music by musicians edited by the best-selling music critic David Hajdu. Several new higher education titles are now seeing extensive adoptions, including a theory book by Steve Laitz, The Complete Musician, and a modular series of books designed for world music courses.

Publishing Report 6. Schools

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Schools publishing is an important growth area for OUP. It is the principal activity of the International Division branches, and there are major programmes in the UK and Spain. Although subject to the irregular rhythms of government funding, it has great potential in many of our markets.

In spite of very difficult market conditions, the UK Education Division's Primary list performed exceptionally well in 2003/04. We gained share in both literacy and reading schemes and moved to be the number one imprint overall in the primary market. The Oxford Reading Tree's new look, with updated covers, refreshed teaching material, and a brand-new non-fiction strand, Fireflies, exceeded all expectations. Connections, a cross-curricular literacy scheme covering geography, science, and history, also supported our growth.

In Secondary, the Division publishes across five main subject areas (English, maths, science, geography, and modern foreign languages). Framework Maths, a Key Stage 3 Maths scheme, had an excellent year. Framework Science for the same age range was critically acclaimed by science consultants and helped us gain market share. 21 st Century Science is an exciting and innovative pilot project for a new approach to GCSE Science that we are developing in partnership with the Nuffield Curriculum Centre and the University of York. This will be launched in 2006 and there has been an excellent response to both the print and electronic resources we have produced for the pilot.

In our Children's business we saw an increasing focus on lead titles. Picture Book highlights included publication of Winnie's New Computer, the fifth title of our growing Winnie the Witch brand, and the publication of our definitive Oxford Treasury of Fairy Tales, a wonderful gift volume which has been ten years in the making. On our fiction list for older children Tim Bowler's Starseeker was the outstanding title of the year, selling strongly in its new paperback edition.

In Spain, Oxford Educacion's first ever Primary title, Mikado (a French textbook - not Japanese!), was an instant success, establishing itself as market leader in its launch year. Geografia e Historia I de ESO (first level of secondary) was awarded third prize by the Ministerio de Educacion in the category of best textbook across all subjects and levels in secondary and upper-secondary. For the first time geography, history, and science titles were published in cuskera (Basque).

A range of new publishing by OUP China exceeded expectations. We entered a new market with the Exploring Geography series for Certificate-level students and quickly became the market leader with a share of over 50 per cent. We maintained our substantial market share in Certificate-level physics with a new Physics at Work series. Similar success was experienced with Certificate-level biology.

In Australia the secondary school list performed particularly well. A new Italian course, Tutti Insieme! , did well in the home market and was also imported by the UK Education Division. Other headline titles included A.R.T n/e; Key Features of Modern History n/e; and Food and Technology.

Two major new primary programmes were launched in India: Broadway, a multi-skills ELT course; and Discovering Mathematics 1-8, a new core maths programme. Both are performing well.

Four years of a new curriculum - Reception, Years 1, 2, and 3 - were implemented in South Africa, providing wonderful publishing opportunities. The branch published for most subjects and received a 90 per cent approval rate. Subjects included literacy, handwriting, numeracy, and life skills. Many books were produced in up to 11 languages.

In Canada, we entered a new market with an intermediate level (ages 12-14) French as a Second Language (FSL) Programme called Communi-Quette. FSL is a compulsory subject at this level and this new series is expected to become the market leader in many provinces. An eighth edition of Canada's best-selling title, The Canadian Oxford School Atlas, was launched in October.

In Malaysia we won tenders to publish four core textbooks, which accounted for 21 per cent of branch sales. In addition, our sixth form textbooks and our guidebooks performed very well.

Pakistan printed 7,000 copies of each of three levels of a new Secondary Social Studies course by Peter Moss and sold out within a month. Endorsements were received from the Cambridge International Examinations for three O-Level titles - in biology, Urdu, and Islamic studies.

Tanzania published and gained approval for a new four-level English course for primary schools. It also won a tender to produce two science and two English books (levels 4 and 5) for Zanzibar.

Finally, in Kenya, a supreme effort went into publishing core textbooks for the new curriculum in seven subject areas. With an almost 100 per cent approval rating, sales of these books led to spectacular results in this market.

Publishing Report 7. English Language Teaching

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English Language Teaching- publishing is an area of great strength for OUP. In 2003/04 we continued to grow sales by volume and value, and to win market share despite greater competition from international and regional publishers and some challenging market conditions.

We started the year with the launch of our new Adult course, Natural English, at the IATEFL (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) conference in Brighton, UK, where it was shortlisted for the Ben Warren prize for contributions to teacher development. The publishing since then has been dominated by the preparation of the New English File elementary level, which revitalizes an important series. The new package combines print, video, and multimedia components via the 'Study Link' system.

On the American English side, we shall shortly complete publication of English KnowHow, offering a genuine alternative to American Headway and Integrated English. This makes Oxford the publisher with the widest range of global American adult courses, to appeal to the differing needs of our American English markets around the world.

In our publishing for the Spanish schools market, we achieved strong growth in pre-primary with Teddy's Train. In primary, we launched four levels of a new six-level course, Galaxy. Overall we maintained our market-leading position in primary and secondary, despite increasingly fierce competition.

In Italy, our publishing for both the media (lower secondary) and biennio (upper secondary) segments was very successful. Sales of Horizons, which doubled its expected first year sales and is set to become the market leader, were particularly impressive.

We celebrated the sale of the twenty-millionth unit from the Oxford Bookworms Library. This series of graded readers was launched in 1989 and now contains 150 titles, including original stories as well is adaptations of classic and modern fiction. A second edition of the entire series was published in 2000, with the distinctive black covers redesigned, and sales were truly worldwide. Sales of the new Dominoes series of readers, aimed at the secondary market, were encouraging.

The highlight of the year for our British Grammar list was a lunch to celebrate the publication of the three-millionth copy of A Practical English Grammar, which has been continuously in print since 1960. The authors, A. J. Thomson and A. V. Martinet, were presented with commemorative editions. Sadly, Agnes Martinet died in November 2003.

We also published Natural Grammar by Scott Thornbury, the first grammar book for learners based on the lexical approach. This won the British Council's UK Innovation Award for ELT products and services in March 2004.

In the USA, January 2004 saw the launch of OUP's new college ESL (English as a Second Language) grammar series, Grammar Sense. This series, which consists of over 30 components, is based on the authentic use of English grammar in discourse.

Our Applied Linguistics and Methodology list has won many awards in the past and this year was no exception. Teaching English as an International Language by Sandra Lee McKay won the Ben Warren Prize and was also shortlisted for the ARELS Frank Bell Prize. A paper in Applied Linguistics journal won the American Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages and Modern Language journal Paul Pimsleur Award for Research in Foreign Language Education.

Demand continued to grow for electronic products and components in courses. Industry recognition was achieved with the first 'English Speaking Union Award for Innovation' for Kids' Word Bank 2 CD-ROM. This follows the Quality Seal awarded to Kids' Word Bank 1 by Europrix in 2002.

Our online presence continued to grow too with nearly 750,000 visitors to our product support sites during the year. Over 200,000 came to the Headway site.

Our rights income has almost doubled from the previous year. This has been driven by the successful development of relationships with Sony, Sharp, Casio, Canon, and Seiko, all of whom have licences to include the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (and other ELT reference works) on dedicated handheld devices for sale in East Asia.

Financial Reports

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Abstract of the Accounts of the Trading Operations and the Delegates' Property and Reserve Fund of Oxford University Press for the year ended 31 March 2003

Introductory note

The Delegates wish to observe that:

(a) the abstracts of Accounts are drawn from the full audited accounts of the Trading Operations and the Delegates' Property and Reserve Fund of the Press;

(b) with regard to the abstract of the combined Balance Sheet of the Trading Operations, the short-term cash position is substantially stronger at 31 March than at other times of the year;

(c) a proportion of earnings and cash balances arising in certain overseas countries is not available for use elsewhere;

(d) the Delegates' Property and Reserve Fund was established during the year ended 31 March 1984 in order to distinguish more clearly the reserve investments of the Press from the assets and liabilities relating to the Trading Operations. The Fund holds and manages the properties of the Press together with the income arising therefrom. Since the Press is a charitable enterprise and does not enjoy the protection of limited liability, the purpose of the Fund is as follows:

(i) to provide protection to the University against its having its credit called upon to underwrite any future liabilities of the Press's Trading Operations. The volume of net liquid reserves appropriate to achieve this objective is determined by the size of the Press's Trading Operations;

(ii) to provide the Delegates with a source of finance from which they may make grants for specific University projects.

Statement by the Auditors to the Delegates of the Oxford University Press

We have audited the full accounts of both the Trading Operations and the Delegates' Property and Reserve Fund of Oxford University Press for the year ended 31 March 2004 and submitted unqualified audit reports thereon to the Delegates.

Our audits have been carried out as prescribed by the Statutes of the University and according to instructions received from the Delegates and approved United Kingdom Auditing Standards.

(Signed)
Deloitte & Touche LLP
Chartered Accountants and Registered Auditors

Crawley, 6 July 2004

Abstract of the Combined Balance Sheet of the Trading Operations as at 31 March 2004

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Abstract of the Combined Results of the Trading Operations for the year ended 31 March 2004

Abstract of the Statement of Recognized Gains and Losses of the Trading Operations for the year ended 31 March 2003

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Abstract of the Combined Balance Sheet of the Delegates' Property and Reserve Fund as at 31 March 2004

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Balance Sheet as at 31 March 2004

Abstract of the Combined Statement of Financial Activities of the Delegates' Property and Reserve Fund for the year ended 31 March 2004

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OUP Committees, 2004

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OUP Delegates
Sir Colin Lucas, The Vice-Chancellor, Balliol College
Professor D. A. Hills, The Senior Proctor, Lincoln College
Doctor I. W. Archer, The Junior Proctor, Keble College
Doctor T. C. Buchanan, The Assessor, Kellogg College
Professor S. D. Iversen, Chairman of Finance Committee, Magdalen College
Professor R. W. Ainsworth, St Catherine's
Professor J. M. Ball, Queen's College
Professor I. D. Campbell, St John's College
Doctor Roger Crisp, St Anne's College
Professor A. S. Goudie, Hertford College
Professor D. S. King, St John's College
Professor C. Leaver, St John's College
Professor Hermione Lee, New College
Professor C. P. Mayer, Wadham College
Professor A. E. Morpurgo Davies, Somerville College
Sir Peter North, Principal, Jesus College
Professor D. Sherrington, New College
Professor P. A. Slack, Principal, Linacre College
Professor O. P. Taplin, Magdalen College
Mr. B. Ward-Perkins, St. Hilda's College
Professor D. A. Warrell, St Cross College

OUP Finance Committee
Sir Colin Lucas, The Vice-Chancellor, Balliol College
Professor D. A. Hills, The Senior Proctor, Lincoln College
Professor S. D. Iversen, Chairman, Magdalen College
Doctor H. M. Reece, Secretary to the Delegates
Professor R. W. Ainsworth, St Catherine's
Mr. D. Arculus
Doctor I. S. Asquith, Managing Director, Academic Division
Mr. R. C. Boning, Group Finance Director
Ms L. Brown, President of OUP USA
Ms S. N. Froud, Managing Director, OUP International Division
Miss R. Hedley-Miller, St. Hugh's College
Professor D. S. King, St John's College
Mr. D. Levin
Professor C. P. Mayer, Wadham College
Professor A. E. Morpurgo Davies, Somerville College
Mr. P. R. Mothersole, Managing Director, ELT Division (to October 2003)
Sir Peter North, Principal, Jesus College
Professor P. A. Slack, Principal, Linacre College

Group Strategy Committee
Doctor H. M. Reece, Secretary to the Delegates
Doctor I. S. Asquith, Managing Director, Academic Division
Mr. R. C. Boning, Group Finance Director
Ms L. Brown, President of OUP USA
Ms S. N. Froud, Managing Director, OUP International Division
Ms K. Harris, Managing Director, Educational Division
J. Lezcano Garcia, Managing Director, OUP Espana
Mr. P Marshall (from October 2003)
Mr. P. R. Mothersole, Managing Director, ELT Division (to October 2003)

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Click for digests of OUP annual reports and accounts, as published in The Bookseller, 1988 - 1999 Years ended March/April 1988, 1989, 1990, (1991 in preparation) 1992, (1993 and 1994 in preparation) 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001.

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The Waldock Report, OU's own investigation into its P (1970)
CUP's tax-exemption Chapter 15 of M. H. Black's Cambridge University Press 1584-1984.
Oxbridge accounts reveal assets of £2 billion Sunday Times, 16/11/97
Mammon's Imprint, by Valentine Cunningham (+ leader comment and campaign), OUP fights corner in poetry row (includes CUP's donations to CU), US presses enjoy tax freedom, The Times Higher (Education Supplement), 12/2/99.
OUP to invest £87 million in university The Times (Business section), 17/7/99
OUP denies breach of charity rules The Oxford Times, 5/11/99
Cooking the books? Cherwell, 12/11/99
OUP profit row Cherwell, 25/2/00
A Message from India The Oxford Times, 30/3/01, in which OUP's 1999 'donations' are admitted to be bogus.
A Palpable Hit? OUP's illegal donation in 2003 of £77 million for the purchase of the John Radcliffe Infirmary in Woodstock Road, for conversion into student accommodation.
Oxford Mail and Times reports on above, 9th & 15th August 2003