The Waldock Report

Although certain elements in the report have been superseded (soon afterwards the Wolvercote paper mill was sold, by 1977 the last departments of the 'London Business' - e.g. the lucrative ELT operation - had been rehoused back in Oxford, and in 1989 the Printing Division was closed down), and although many of the Report's recommendations were implemented (some even before its publication), much of the report nevertheless still makes interesting and resonant reading, especially to scholars of Malcolm v. Oxford , of the recent poetry fiasco, and of the pressing matter of OUP's UK and US tax-exemption. In this introductory file, I pick out just a few of the most interesting points and passages.

The first noteworthy oddity is that amongst the Committee's terms of reference (in full at Appendix A, but omitted from the Report's Preface) were included:

2. The Present status of the Press. Its position as a University Department which carries on a trading and tax-paying business; the significance of this status for both the University and the Press.

7. System of finance. (vi) Taxation. (my italics)

Despite these specific requirements, there is not a single mention by Waldock of OUP's paying of tax or of any recommendation or plan to claim exemption from it. This huge silence would be curious anyway in a report which devotes 30 detailed pages to 'The Press as a business concern', but is especially odd in view of the facts that OUP's first application for American tax-exemption (see Introduction + options) came in 1972, just two years after the Report's publication, and that OUP's similar UK application was made just three years later. Plans for these applications must secretly have been afoot even while the Report was being researched, yet they attracted not a single syllable in it.

There are, however, two interesting general references in the Report to the tax-paying by and financing of other university presses:

60. Chapter 2. Other University Presses
Cambridge University Press's profits, like those of the Oxford Press, are liable to tax... The accounts of the Press are kept separate from those of the University... The Press receives no subsidy from the University except occasional grants for the publication of certain prize essays. It has in the past made small annual payments to the University, but this practice was suspended when the Syndics had to find the finance for the new Printing House...

65. United States Universities.
In the United States a University Press is regarded as an almost indispensable service department of a University. The Association of American University Presses numbered in 1967 sixty member Presses, which in the previous year had issued approximately 2,300 titles and had achieved a total sales figure of $22 million. Partly for reasons of taxation, [my italics - I assume that it is US charity-status or tax-exemption which is at stake here - A.M.] it is generally the policy of American University Presses to deny themselves the commercial advantages of publishing textbooks, which have formed, together with the privileged books and (in the case of Oxford) the reference books, the basis of Oxford's and Cambridge's financial self-sufficiency. Indeed, it is primarily this fact which accounts for the smaller scale of the operations of United States Presses.

On the financial relations between OUP and the University, The Report says:

233. Although we see little prospect of the Press's being in a position in the foreseeable future to make a substantial annual subvention to the University out of profits, we do not exclude the possibility that the Delegates should from time to time make such contributions, in cash or in kind, to the University for specific purposes as they can afford (and as they have made in the past). On the contrary, we consider that the Delegates should recognize it as their duty, in appropriate cases, to contribute to the University in this way. We have in mind particularly meeting the needs of a faculty, or of the Bodleian, Ashmolean, or similar body in a publishing project; contributing a site for University purposes as in the case of the redevelopment of Wellington Square; and making occasional cash grants for specific University projects. Clearly, contributions which serve simultaneously the purposes of the Press and of a University Faculty or body are particularly appropriate. The publishing projects just mentioned are of that kind, and another of the same kind suggested to us in evidence was possible aid by the Press to the Bodleian in the purchase of manuscripts or collections of papers with a view to a subsequent learned publication by the Clarendon Press. It is not for us, but for the faculties and departments concerned, to explore these possibilities further. We think it right, however, here to record our view that in these areas of contact between the Press and the University there is room for a rather greater contribution by the Press to the academic purposes of the University.

234. Finally, there is a further consideration which indicates that such contributions as the Press may make to the University should take the forms suggested in our previous paragraph rather than any substantial regular payment. The Press's high reputation in publishing circles and throughout the learned world depends not only on its own exceptional performance but also on the knowledge that, as an independent non-profit-distributing enterprise, it is free from domination by commercial considerations. The loss of that reputation might indeed be a serious matter, and if it came to be thought that the University regarded the O.U.P. as a regular means of making money for itself, irreparable harm might be done. This argument applies to the O.U.P. as a whole; and it does so perhaps with particular force in the case of the New York Business, which, unlike American University Presses, competes with commercial publishers in general trade publishing and yet is accorded in the United States recognition as a University Press. There is indeed a danger that if the Press were required to make a regular and substantial subvention to the University, the Delegates might find themselves more reluctant to undertake learned publishing ventures likely to be unremunerative and, conversely, might feel obliged to look more actively for sources of commercial profit, possibly at the risk of some academic standards. If by reason of the character of the Delegates this danger may not be great, no less damaging to the Press would be the belief in the outside world that such a change of policy had occurred. In short, the image of the Press as a non-profit-distributing enterprise seems to us to be an object the maintenance of which is important in itself.

The following observations in the Report about OUP (New York) are also interesting:

134. In publishing methods, O.U.P. (N.Y.) is necessarily geared to North American patterns and tempos. The Officers have established personal relations with a number of highly distinguished men in the world of books, whose advice is available to the Press. At the same time the Business derives advantages from the Oxford connection and the Oxford imprint, and it is able to offer authors a personal and individual approach. The evidence we received in the U.S.A. was unanimous that the New York Business has a very worthwhile place in American publishing, intermediate between the American University Presses and the larger commercial publishing firms. It does credit to the University and to the Press (to which it is a considerable source of economic strength).

135. The growth of the American Business has been one of the most significant aspects of the recent development of the Press, and there is every reason to believe that it will continue. The diagram Figure 4 on page 68 (Chapter 3, para. 135) shows the progress of the New York Business since 1930...

180. O.U.P. New York is editorially responsible for some 8 per cent of the General List of the Press. Its turnover comes in almost equal parts from its local publishing and sales of Oxford and London books. In all, the Business is responsible for over one-quarter of the combined turnover of the publishing departments, and this represents more than the contribution of all the other overseas branches together. Moreover, the Delegates envisage that the New York Business will continue to grow.

181. The New York Business has been given limited borrowing powers by the Delegates but, apart from this, the finance necessary for the growth of the American publishing venture has been generated internally. Like the other component businesses of O.U.P., it remits 40 per cent of its profits after tax to the General Fund [my italics - A.M.] (see para. 208). It is thus clear that the New York Business has not grown at the expense of learned publishing but has contributed in fact substantially to the financial strength of O.U.P. as a whole.

184. O.U.P. New York is a company incorporated under United States law and pays taxes as a commercial concern. The Cambridge University Press business in New York is not incorporated and we were assured that the relative advantages of incorporation, which involve complex questions of company and tax law, are re-examined from time to time in the light of prevailing circumstances.

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Proceed to the full, detailed Waldock Report Index, with disclamatory note from Hebdomadal Council and ongoing links to the fully-transcribed Report chapters etc..

Click for CUP's tax-exemption. Account of Cambridge UP's 1976 'preliminary application'.