§ 46. Mr. Ronald Bellasked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he will place in the Library a copy of the report on the "Admiralty Compass Observatory, Datchet", written by Mr. A. J. McMaster in October 1970.
§ 47. Mr. Shersbyasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he has taken into account a report prepared by Messrs. K. A. Taylor and F. A. Storey in 1972 in arriving at his decision with regard to the closure of the Admiralty Compass Laboratory at Slough.
§ Dr. GilbertThe reports prepared by Mr. A. J. McMaster in 1970 and by Messrs. Taylor and Storey in 1972 concluded that the work undertaken by the workshops at the Admiralty Compass Observatory at Slough at the time the reports were prepared, was well organised and executed. In each case, however, a recommendation was made that a further review should be carried out three years later.
Accordingly, the position was reviewed in 1974–75. This study showed that the work of the production workshops had declined, since the earlier reports were prepared, to a level at which they were no longer economically viable, and that the workload would diminish further with the phasing out of service of the older types of compass. It was, therefore, decided that there was no alternative to their closure.
The reports were prepared for the use of management and are not suitable for publication, but copies of the recommendations of both the McMaster and the Taylor/Storey reports have been made available to the staff and trade union sides at ACO Slough on request as part of the consultative process.