CUP's & OUP's tax-exemption: redaction puzzles

Cambridge & Oxford University Presses' applications for tax-exemption, 1975-78

REDACTION PUZZLES in the 2009-released papers

EXPLANATION, MARCH 2009 Under the 30-year rule, in February 2009 the Inland Revenue file on the two university presses' applications of the late 1970s was released into the National Archive, but indexed there as relating only to CUP (go to search and type in reference IR 40/19499), despite containing an IR instruction also to index it under OUP. The papers were then initially classified as "closed for 40 years", apparently bowing to a request made by CUP in 2008 for an extra 10-year embargo. When this was queried, an investigation resulted in the papers being declared now "open", but with certain words and passages in them being "redacted" by the Inland Revenue, that is, blanked out by computer. The Inland Revenue redactions are supposedly made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 Section 40, which protects named individuals' reputations (these are labelled "Closed until 2033"), and Section 41, which protects commercially confidential material such as the amounts of the tax payments involved (labelled "Closed until 2019"). I say 'supposedly' because assiduous Akme scholars may conclude that some of the redactions (for example the opening paragraph in Mr Briddon's letter of 17/1/1977, 5th below) may have been made for other reasons. Akme visitors are invited to solve the puzzle of the missing passages by discovering, deciphering or concocting their likely contents, with the most plausible or amusing solutions, e-mailed to Akme, winning free copies of The Remedy. - A. M.

Inland Revenue report on CUP by Betty McRobert, 17th May 1976, page 2
Click for document. My guess is Manchester University Press and, somehow, SPCK - Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. - A.M.