text:
Anchorage, AK Public Fax Machine
YP - The Real Yellow PagesSM - helps you find the right local businesses to meet your specific needs. Search results are sorted by a combination of factors to give you a set of choices in response to your search criteria. These factors are similar to those you might use to determine which business to select from a local Yellow Pages directory, including proximity to where you are searching, expertise in the specific services or products you need, and comprehensive business information to help evaluate a business's suitability for you. "Preferred" listings, or those with featured website buttons, indicate YP advertisers who directly provide information about their businesses to help consumers make more informed buying decisions. YP advertisers receive higher placement in the default ordering of search results and may appear in sponsored listings on the top, side, or bottom of the search results page.
1. America North Printers
907 E Dowling RdAnchorage, AK 99518
From Business: Family Owned and Operated, Printers. Office Supplies, Copying and Duplicating Service, Invitations and Announcements, Business Cards, Rubber and Plastic Stamps, W…
2. Great Originals
360 E Intl Airport Rd Ste 6Anchorage, AK 99518
From Business: Over 17 years of learning, wire & perfect binding, window & floor graphics, tradeshow graphics, static cling graphics, spiral, post cards & rack cards, over 17 ye…
3. A S A P Printing
ASAP Printing has changed it's name to Service Business Printing UMED. Same location, same great service and staff!www.serviceprint.com(907) 562-924…
4. ScanFile of Alaska
Anchorage, AK 99515
5. FedEx Office Print & Ship Center
2210 E Northern Lights BlvdAnchorage, AK 99508
From Business: FedEx Office in Anchorage, AK provides a one-stop shop for small businesses printing and shipping expertise and reliable customer service when and where you need …
6. Alaska Legal Copy
117 W 4th AveAnchorage, AK 99501
From Business: Since 1992, Alaska Legal Copy has been one of the leading litigation copying firms in Alaska. Based in Anchorage, Alaska, it offers personalized and professional …
7. Secretarial & Copy Center Inc
1231 W Northern Lights BlvdAnchorage, AK 99503
8. Professional Copy Service
921 W 6th AveAnchorage, AK 99501
9. Copy Alaska
243 E 5th AveAnchorage, AK 99501
10. Cook Inlet Copy South
2729 C StAnchorage, AK 99503
11. Reprographics Northwest
2739 C StAnchorage, AK 99503
12. Arctic CAD
3400 Spenard Rd Ste 11Anchorage, AK 99503
13. Northern Duplicating Inc
4011 Arctic Blvd Ste 103Anchorage, AK 99503
14. Progressive Imaging
3501 W 42nd AveAnchorage, AK 99517
15. Microcom Fax Line
6927 Old Seward HwyAnchorage, AK 99518
16. Patient Printing
Anchorage, AK 99501
17. The UPS Store
205 E Dimond BlvdAnchorage, AK 99515
In and out in less than 10 minutes. Clerk was courteous, professional and very prompt.
18. Alaska Printing Inc
I've loved working with Alaska Printing. They are helpful, full of suggestions and every time I get a product it has been done exactly as I wanted …
19. Mail Cache
Great place wonderful people
20. OfficeMax
8701 Old Seward HwyAnchorage, AK 99515
There are much better deals elsewhere. But when you need something specific, shop here.
21. Office Depot
201 E 6th AveAnchorage, AK 99501
From Business: Office Depot and OfficeMax are now one company. We've come together to bring you the best shopping experience possible. Office Depot at 201 E 6th Avenue is the pl…
22. PIP Marketing, Signs, Print
833 E 4th AveAnchorage, AK 99501
From Business: As your local printing shop, we look forward to working with you. We have over 35 years of experience in custom printing services for businesses, organizations, a…
23. A-1 Copy Systems
927 W Fireweed Ln # 1Anchorage, AK 99503
From Business: A-1 Copy Systems is an Alaskan-owned and operated company that specializes in the sales, installation and maintenance of office equipment. The company offers a va…
24. FedEx Ship Center
6050 Rockwell AveAnchorage, AK 99502
From Business: Visit FedEx Ship Center in Anchorage, AK when you need packing supplies, boxes, FedEx Express and FedEx Ground shipping services. You can also have your FedEx Exp…
25. Alaska Tab & Bind Inc
2207 Spenard RdAnchorage, AK 99503
From Business: Alaska Tab & Bind offers binding, lamination, printing and copying services. It laminates covers, maps, blueprints, photos, checklists and posters. The company pr…
26. Digital Blueprint, Inc.
903 W Northern Lights Blvd Ste 103Anchorage, AK 99503
From Business: Welcome to Digital Blueprint! We specialize in copying, printing, scanning, and plotting of documents. We specialize in taking information directly from storage m…
27. Chinook Printing Company
639 W Intl Airport Rd Ste 34Anchorage, AK 99518
From Business: Chinook Printing Company offers competitive prices, quick turn around and our customer service is second to none.
28. Speedy Mail
7500 Old Seward Hwy Ste BAnchorage, AK 99518
29. Alaska Serigraphics
1711 Abbott RdAnchorage, AK 99507
From Business: Founded in 1981, Alaska Serigraphics is one of the Alaska's leading promotional gear company. The center offers a wide range of marketing and promotional tools, s…
30. Multimedia Cottage
110 W 15th AveAnchorage, AK 99501


text:
Welcome, Guest, to the RLI portal!
Log In
- My Pages -
Guest Page
- My Communities -
User Profile
- Directory -
Browse Directory
Log In
Welcome to the RLI Portal.
Log in to your personalized portal account.
You are about to access computer resources which belong to RLI Corp. and may be used only by employees and authorized users for business purposes. RLI reserves the right to monitor use of these resources to ensure appropriate use.
User name:
Forgot Password?
Surety customers please contact Surety Support at (800)645-2402 for password assistance.
© 2017 RLI Corp.
9025 N Lindbergh Dr. Peoria, Illinois 61615, Phone: (309) 692-1000 Fax: (309) 692-1068
Terms Of Use
Privacy Policy

subset: commoncrawl


text:
This Is What We Do& Why: TEHYA, The Three-Legged Greyhound
While this site is principally about filmmaking, photography and TV news, the two things that I am most deeply involved in, it is also a site about who I am. And one thing that I very much am is an animal person. Over the years I have made mention of our greyhounds — first Lola, then Ava, and currently Alex and Bea. But we are also very much involved in the racing greyhound movement and organization.
When my wife Bonnie retired from her full-time job three years ago she vowed that she was going to replace her work time with some volunteerism. The one thing that she very much wanted to help out with was fostering greyhounds.
We have been very happy with the dogs that we have adopted. We also know a bit about the lives that we are giving safe haven to.
Greyhounds are bred and raised for one purpose: To run in and win races so that gamblers can bet on them. They are essentially four-legged dice. Greyhounds are only kept on the track if they can win a certain percentage of their races. If they aren't winning and nobody's betting on them, they are let go.
They also get injured, maimed, and even die in races.
The greyhound rescue organizations across the country, such as Greyhound Friends For Life, from whom Bonnie and I have now adopted three greyhounds, is one. I did my first reporter-photographer story for KCRA about how GFFL was helping to rescue the abandoned racing greyhounds from Guam in 2009:
We've been told that most people who foster will take in one or two dogs a year. In the three years that Bonnie and I have been fostering we have taken in twelve dogs.
Most of them came to us as "problem dogs": greyhounds who had been returned for one reason or another. However, once these dogs came into our household we haven't found them to be problems at all. We've come to believe that the problems were with the owners, who weren't prepared for the commitment that is required of taking in an animal. Perhaps they wanted a greyhound because they were struck by their beauty, but were not willing to put in the time — the walking and exercise that a working dog requires.
We've found that each time we brought a "problem dog" into our house, along with our other forever greyhounds, who are happy, healthy, socially well-adjusted, that the visiting dogs quickly assimilate and just want to fit in and be a part of the family.
We've also taken in a couple of injured dogs with special needs. Dogs who broke legs on the track and were getting treatment. These dogs would normally be put to sleep rather than put in the medical investment of nursing them back to health. Fortunately, some of the race tracks have partnered up with universities with veterinary studies and the wounded dogs are handed over to the hospitals to be treated by the vet students. It's a win for the future-veterinarians. And it's a win for the dogs — they will never have to race for their meals again. They get to go into retirement.
Racing greyhounds are bred and sold immediately to the race tracks, where they go through two years of training. They live in cages and wear muzzles. They are even tattooed: in one ear is their birthday; in the other ear is their serial number. You can track each dog online to see their history, and sometimes even videos of their races. They are a commodity.
Only one-in-seven greyhounds every make it into a race on the track. When a dog doesn't measure up they are let go. Hopefully to a rescue organization. Dogs start racing when they are between two and three and are mandatorily retired at the age of five.
When a racing greyhound is "retired" it enters an entirely new world that they were never bred, raised, or trained for.
— Until a racing greyhound leaves the track world they have never laid eyes on another breed of dog.
— They have never been in a house.
— They have never seen or had to walk up a step. All racing dogs are led up and down on ramps.
And yet, they are amazingly well trained. House training is almost instant and natural for them.
When a racing greyhound sees another breed of dog they will look at them either curiously or they will start to bark at them. The barking is not an aggressive action however. The greyhound will bark as it is backing away. They are afraid of other types of dogs.
Greyhounds also have extremely thin skin, almost like humans. They are afraid of getting into scrapes and getting a tear in their skin, which I very easy to do.
Greyhounds have no idea what it is like to live under the same roof with humans. And once they get a taste of that life, and discover what human touch and affection and love is, they never want to leave it. They are starving to be loved.
This is why Bonnie and I are so helplessly committed to wanting to help these creatures.
And this is what brings this article to the current dog that we have taken in for a period of time until she can be adopted into her forever home.
Tehya came to us this past week on Monday. This is a name that was only just given to her. Her previous name was so concocted that it makes no sense.
"Tehya" is a Zuni Indian word for females that means valued, protected, precious.
She is a seven-year-old female breeder dog.
The story we have about Teyha is that she was being transported in a truck by the owner-breeder with several other dogs when the truck had an accident. The owner was injured, several of the dogs got away, and this little female was seriously injured. She suffered a wound to her front left leg – but it wasn't broken. If the owner had simply taken her to a vet she would have been perfectly fine within a few weeks. But he did nothing. Instead, she lie in a cage with a damaged leg that continued to get worse – without any form of medication or pain relief. Finally, after — three months! — he turned her over to the greyhound rescue group to do something with her because he was too injured from his accident to do anything.
Tehya was picked up by a woman in the rescue group and the dog was in immense pain. She was taken directly to VCA Animal Clinic here in Sacramento. The very next day the leg had to be amputated. The months of inaction to have her minor injuries attended to allowed the wounds and then the bones in her front left leg to get infected. Her leg was only being held on by a single tendon.
That surgery took place on Saturday, March 15, 2014. We picked her up and brought her to our home two days later on Monday, March 17. She was scared and suspicious, but she has instantly responded to human kindness.
When Bonnie and I were picking her up at the hospital we ran into a couple we'd met a few years who have two greyhounds. Since greyhounds are raised with their own breed they respond strongly to being around another of their own kind. Taking Tehya out of the clinic in the company of these two greyhounds was a comfort to her. Then when we brought her home she was greeted at the back gate by our two greyhounds Alex and Bea. Tails were wagging everywhere.
Tehya has only been with us for 36-hours now, but she is already showing very good signs. She is more relaxed around people now. Her ears perk up when you walk into the room. She loves to be touched and held. She's able to get up on her feet on her own to go outside and do her business. She loves being in a house and on a soft pad that has become her sanctuary. She is on the road back to finding out what it is like to be a dog and to be loved.
She will be with us through this recovery period of a few months, then she will be adopted. This part can be hard. We find ourselves loving each of the dogs that come through our lives. But we have the satisfaction that all of the dogs that we have fostered have gone on to great homes. Sometimes Bon and I wish that we could go with them!
There are so many dogs in need, but we are able to help out the ones that we can. It's something.
This is what we do and why


text:
2. Why use a Monitor Controller?
More studios than ever are now recording and mixing entirely within a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), attracted by high quality software plug-ins, synths and samplers, and above all, convenience and affordability. Recordings with 48 tracks or more used to require mixing desks of 48 channels or more, but with most studios now moving to mixing in the box, many consoles are becoming nothing more than cumbersome and expensive volume controls.
Although the computer keyboard and mouse have largely taken the place of the mixing desk and tape machine, most engineers still want instant control over key parameters such as master volume and monitor and source selection. The monitor controller offers the user all these features along with a several other controls, including mono, mute, and phase switches, and sometimes also headphone monitoring and talkback facilities.
Finally, with the move towards 5.1 surround sound and the recent introduction of the 7.1 surround format, the benefits of a dedicated monitor controller are becoming even more apparent. Engineers require full control of the output of each speaker, and muting or soloing of individual speakers on the fly makes isolating sounds and problem solving within a surround mix much easier. Some controllers even facilitate instant switching between complete sets of surround monitors.
- 1.wprowadzenie
- 2.Why use a Monitor Controller?
- 3.Features


text:
Twenty-one Waynesburg University students will travel to Gettysburg, Pa., Sunday, Oct. 11, through Thursday, Oct. 15, to partner with the Gettysburg National Military Park and Daniel Lady Farm, a privately owned Civil War farm museum. Rea Redd, director of the University's Eberly Library, and Mary Hamilla, assistant director of the Educational Enrichment Program, will co-lead the trip.
While in Gettysburg, students will assist with battlefield restoration and environmental stewardship. Students will have the opportunity to construct a Virginia Worm Rail Fence as well as rebuild stonewalls at both locations.
Students participating on the trip include:
- Laura Auten, freshman forensic science major from Normal, Ill. (Home School)
- Renee Belisky, junior psychology major from Punxsutawney (Punxsutawney Area High School)
- Matthew Colalcua, sophomore forensic science major from Monaca (Central Valley High School)
- Nicholas Cordova, sophomore political science major from Youngstown, Ohio (Boardman High School)
- Cortnie Devore, junior psychology major from Finleyville (Ringgold High School)
- Rachel Doty, junior biology major from Waynesburg (Waynesburg Central High School)
- Kristina Fisher, freshman nursing major from Bridgeville (South Fayette High School)
- Jordan Fulton, senior forensic science major from Carlisle (Carlisle Area School District)
- Caleb Gaumer, junior forensic science major from Hyndman (Bedford High School)
- Stacey Griffin, junior business management major from Uniontown (Uniontown Area Senior High School)
- Rachel Hamilla, senior psychology major from Masontown (Albert Gallatin Area Senior High School)
- Laken Hart, junior computer science major from Quarryville (Solanco High School)
- Kristine Houser, junior forensic science major from Pittsburgh (Northgate High School)
- Kathryn Kondrick, sophomore history major from Cheswick (Fox Chapel Area High School)
- Jelena Kyle, senior forensic science major from Merrittstown (Connellsville Area Senior High School)
- Hannah Megna, senior English (creative writing) major from Wheeling, W.Va. (Wheeling Park High School)
- Madison Perretta, senior sociology major from Beaver Falls (Beaver Falls Senior High School)
- Jordan Renner, senior forensic science major from Sycamore (West Greene High School)
- Sedona Sowers, senior nursing major from Roseville, Ohio (Crooksville High School)
- Maranda Valentino, junior history major from Finleyville (Thomas Jefferson High School)
- Vincent Wise, junior history major from Carmichaels (Carmichaels Area School District)
# # #
Ashley Wise, Assistant Director of University Relations
724.852.7675 or firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
NEWBURY PARK, Calif. (BRAIN) — Giant USA is laying off ten employees and consolidating some departments at its headquarters as it adjusts to soft market conditions. General manager JT Thompson told employees and outside sales reps about the layoffs in a company-wide meeting Friday.
The layoffs include inside and outside sales staff; staffing at the company's three U.S. distribution centers also was affected.
"These are steps we must take in order to create sustainable growth …read more


text:
Items in Cart: 0 / Total: $0.00
View Cart
Washable Waterproof Absorbent Pad with Antimicrobial Fibers
The Flexible Pup-Pad™ is a multi-functional absorbent pad that is highly absorbent, completely waterproof absorbent pad use with Pup-Head® Portable Dog Potty or Pup-Head® Lite Dog Potties. Comes with elastic corner straps. It can be washed outside with a hose or rinsed in a laundry tub or washed and dried in a machine.
Made with advanced fiber technology and natural antimicrobial, Pup-Pad™ is the most absorbent reusable pad on the market today. Unlike competitive brands Pup-Pad™ is triple layered and will absorb up to six times it weight in liquid. It is completely leak proof featuring our No-Leak™ Non-Slip Barrier and will last for 400 washings.
Pup-Pad™20" x 30" can be used alone or with Indoor Outdoor Dog Potties.
Price: $19.99
Tell a Friend about Pup-Pad™Absorbent Reusable/Washable Pad 20" x 30"!
Price: $9.99
The Pup-Head® Lite measures 20" x 30" and functions exactly like our regular Pup-Head, only better! Instead of a hard plastic collection tray the Pup-Head Lite uses a Flexible Tray that collects and holds urine. The Pup-Head® Lite washable tray absorbs up to six times its weight in liquid. That is over 40 oz. of liquids and it is completely leak proof and inhibits odors. The Pup-Head Lite Dog Potty also features "Heavy Duty Elasticized Corner Straps". Which holds the absorbent material and Pup-Grass mat in place for a secure unit that will not move when your dog steps on it. The Pup-Head Lite also rolls up for easy travel.
The Pup-Head® Lite Dog Potty is an integrated design that features Pup-Grass® scented synthetic grass with a woven backing for instant drainage and Flexi Pup-Tray™ a Triple Layered Absorbent Washable Pad with Waterproof No-Leak™ Non-Slip Barrier. Machine washable for over 300 cycles. Your dog will use it exactly the same way as the Regular Pup-Head Indoor Dog Potty.
Price: $49.99
Out of Stock. Please Check out Pup-Head® Lite!
20" X 30" x 7/8"
Price: $79.99
(Out of Stock)
Home | Contact Us | About Us | Life Vest Exchange Program | Privacy Policy | Warranties & Return Policy | Shipping | Links
©2015 PupGear Corporation a Delaware Company. All rights reserved.


text:
- This event has passed.
Visit Nativity Scenes
December 16, 2017 @ 8:00 am - 7:00 pm
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every day that begins at 8:00am, repeating until December 17, 2017
Event Navigation
Everybody is invited to make a pilgrimage to St. Benedict Center November 26 – December 17, 2017 and January 2-5, 2018, to view God's Love made visible in nativity scenes from the Holy Land, Africa, Asia, South & North America and Europe and pray for peace, which our world so urgently needs. No admission fee. Click here for more information or visit www.StBenedictCenter.com or call 402.352-8819.


text:
The organization was started in 2006 by Steve Coles, who had self-funded the website to get it up and running. The now member supported organization has more than 6,500 registered users! Which makes sense considering their web-based educational forum is known as "the friendliest site on the net". The once web-based only organization has now evolved into an active group that gathers to teach woodworking skills to not only each other, but also veterans, First Responders and multiple youth groups.
The North Carolina Woodworker Outreach Program, holds educational events throughout North Carolina, as well as, the surrounding states. The volunteers work in a hands-on environment with a student to teacher ratio of two to one, which allows the students to receive the attention and training they need. The classes are also free of charge and promise each student will leave with a hand-carved project.
The Outreach program began with a group of caring members who volunteered at Fort Bragg, NC to teach woodworking skills to The Wounded Warriors. The group began holding monthly events, which turned out to be a huge success! In 2009 the post woodworking shop was shut down, but this certainly did not stop the volunteers from teaching what they love! Instead, the group began holding the events in other locations throughout North Carolina.
As the Wounded Warrior project continued to grow, North Carolina Woodworker decided they wanted to continue to do what they do best. This led the organization to reach out to the brave First Responders of our country in 2011. Just like the Wounded Warriors, the men and women who serve as First Responders, may have never had the opportunity to learn these skills had members of this great organization not volunteered their time.
The next big step was to reach out to the nation's youth, who hold the key to the next wave of innovations. In 2011, the nonprofit made the leap and held their very first youth training class. With all the apps, games and social media in the world today, "it is hard to explain the gratification that comes from helping an early teenager put down their phone and actually build something".
Last year, NC Woodworker held a woodworking workshop for a group of twelve excited Girl Scouts. The girls had loved the workshop so much, they had asked the volunteers to come back again this year! Of course, Phil and his team very willingly returned to teach another workshop for the eager little girls. This year the volunteers taught the Girl Scouts how to make heart-shaped keepsake boxes out of maple and walnut, in honor of Valentine's Day.
NC Woodworker also attended two big woodworking events last year, both of which were held in North Carolina. The organization participated in both The Woodworking in America event in Winston-Salem, as well as, The Klingspor Extravaganza event in Hickory. At both events, NC Woodworking members taught individuals how to make curved laminated wood bracelets. Once the person had completed the bracelet, they were able to engrave their initials into the bracelet using a CNC machine. The organization takes a positive approach to new and old woodworking skills. By teaching how to make the bracelet by hand, but also how to enhance it with new technology it, "was our way to merge old school hand tool work and modern CNC. The lines never stopped".
While the group primarily holds educational events and programs, the organization also holds activities that enhance the social dynamic of the group including weekly "new member chat sessions", a monthly guest speaker and a yearly picnic. There is a certain community and friendship that is alive among the members. One of their most popular and beneficial gatherings is their annual "shop crawl". The event consists of about a dozen individuals opening up their personal workshops to allow visitors. At each shop, there is anywhere from 10 to 30 members who then move as a group to the next shop. This event allows individuals to see not only how other shops are set up, but also ask any questions they may have. This in turn allows makers to find inspiration for making their shops better and more functional.
Phil Soper is an elected officer who joined the organization eight years ago and has been an active member ever since. He has held several positions within the organization including President for a year, Vice President for three years and is now the Development Director. Besides being an active member and an elected officer, Phil also goes above and beyond to help out this wonderful organization. Phil knows he is lucky enough to have an at home workshop, but instead of keeping it all to himself, he shares his love for woodworking with friends! Phil holds monthly gatherings at his workshop where he teaches makers everything from simple sharpening skills to ultra-lite boat building.
North Carolina Woodworker is a truly amazing organization, that strives to help educate all people of all ages by working to enhance not only the woodworking community, but also the lives of others. Click here if you would like to take a look around their great website, or donate to their special and wonderful cause!


text:
1990, All Michigan Courts and U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan.
Admitted Pro Hac Vice (limited to a particular case) in Ohio, Indiana and Missouri.
J.D. 1990, Drake University
Phi Alpha Delta International Law Fraternity (admitted, 1987; President, Chester Cole Chapter, 1988-1989).
Moot Court Board 1988-1990 (Vice President, 1989-1990, Outstanding Achievement Award for Moot Court Arguments, 1988).
Honor Board, Justice at Large, 1989-1990.
American Jurisprudence Award, 1990.
Presidential Award, 1988 and 1989.
B.A. 1987, James Madison College of Michigan State University; Major-Socio-Economics; Minor-Spanish.
State of Michigan Competitive Scholarship.
American Association for Justice, American Bar Association, Federal Bar Association, Michigan Association for Justice, The National Trial Lawyers, Michigan Bar Association, Grand Rapids Bar Association.
Practice specializes in plaintiff's serious personal injury cases including car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, construction injuries, wrongful death, traumatic brain injuries, unsafe premises liability, burn injuries, dog bites, nursing home injuries and Michigan no-fault claims.
Scott has experience with many trials and settlements. His recoveries for individual clients include:
$700,000 (Present value of payments totalling more than $900,000)
$475,000 (Present value of payments totalling more than $1,700,000)
And hundreds of other recoveries.


text:
|Previous Section
|Back to Table of Contents
|Lords Hansard Home Page
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, what would the reaction of the Government be if, on conviction, the medical evidence showed that the accused was pregnant but sentence was deferred until after the birth?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, that would be entirely a matter for the courts.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Statement. I wish to make a query about two points which she made in her supplementary answers. In one she said that a doctor may require the removal of handcuffs; in the other she mentioned that restraints might be removed on the basis of medical advice. Can she assure the House that the Government recognise that other professional people work in the National Health Service who may be in charge of patients at a certain time? I am thinking of midwives, nurses, physiotherapists and radiographers which are independent professions. May we have the assurance that any other professionals providing treatment and in charge of patients who require the removal of restraints would have their advice and requests acceded to?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, we would expect the line management in the hospital to operate. The medical person responsible for any patient would be the arbiter as to whether the medical interests were such that the person should not be restrained. That would be the overriding consideration. I do not believe that that could
Lord Jenkin of Roding: My Lords, we return to the Motion which my noble friend the Leader of the House moved some time ago. I am conscious that there is another debate to follow and I shall therefore not detain the House for long.
I listened with interest to the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Richard and Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. I hope the latter will return to the debate as I have one or two points to address in relation to his speech. I believe that the Offices Committee was absolutely right to insist on stringent safeguards for the protection of parliamentary business by whoever will be responsible for handling it when the Stationery Office is privatised. It was said in paragraph 5, and the committee agreed, that extensive safeguards will be necessary to protect the interests of the House. The first safeguard is:
My memory goes back several years, to the time when I was Financial Secretary to the Treasury. In that office I was responsible for the Stationery Office. I have a clear recollection of having to come down to the House of Commons on a number of occasions to apologise profusely that the papers necessary for the conduct of the business of the House were not available, or were available in such small quantities and had been produced by methods other than normal printing because of industrial disruption by HMSO. In the historical glow about that venerable institution to which we were treated by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, there is sometimes a tendency to forget that life in the past has not always been quite so rosy as depicted in the sales prospectus. That is what the information pack is--a sales prospectus.
Even more recently, as Secretary of State for Health and Social Services, it fell to me to receive the Merrison report which was published very shortly after the 1979 election. The Stationery Office was on strike and I had to make a Statement to the House. We were about to publish the report and there was widespread interest both inside and outside the House as to what the Royal Commission would recommend. Therefore I had to indicate the Government's view. It would have been wholly inconceivable that a Secretary of State should have had to stand at the Dispatch Box in the House of Commons and make a Statement about a major government publication and confess that no copies of the report were available for Members in either House. Perhaps that little piece of history has never been written.
I saw the Civil Service in the department at its best on that occasion. Staff recognised early in the morning that we would not be able to obtain the copies which we had been promised through the normal channels. I did not inquire too deeply as to the methods used by my Private Office and some of the people who worked with it. All I know is that during the course of the morning they secured from the warehouses in Cornwall House--the other side of London Bridge--sufficient copies of the report to meet, they thought, the immediate needs of both Houses of Parliament.
There were pickets on the Carriage Gates ready to stop any van delivering papers to the House of Commons on behalf of the Stationery Office. So the device was chosen that we loaded all the copies into the boots of five ministerial cars which drove peacefully through the pickets and emerged into Speaker's Court. Happily, copies of the Royal Commission report were unloaded from the boots of the cars and transported upstairs by House of Commons staff and staff in this House so that by 3.30 p.m. when I rose to make my Statement no whisper needed to be made of the situation. There were sufficient copies in the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office here for Members' needs. That was small thanks, I have to say, to the staff of the Stationery Office at that time.
Of course, things are much better today as a result of legislation passed over the last 15 years restoring a better balance between employers and trade unions in the conduct of industrial relations. The Stationery Office has progressively been exposed to some of the chill winds of competition, than which there is nothing better for injecting a sense of responsibility towards customers.
As we read in the information pack, the Stationery Office was first a trading fund. It then became open to government departments and other public sector customers of the Stationery Office to place their business elsewhere. They did that, in increasing numbers. As a result, now that the Stationery Office is an executive agency, the words quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, could have been a vindication of the policy of putting large parts of the public sector into executive agencies. It has certainly had a benign effect on the efficiency of the Stationery Office.
One point to which neither noble Lord opposite addressed himself is that the Stationery Office is left in the position of having to compete for public sector custom against the entire rest of the industry--since, now, the public sector can place its orders wherever it chooses--while at the same time it is precluded from going out to the private sector to attract business. And why is that? Because it is a public sector organisation, subject to inevitable Treasury constraints, and also subject to the rules on public sector borrowing. It is therefore in a position of potentially competing unfairly with the private sector.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, attempted to deal with that argument by asking: what about the Post Office? Virtually the entire custom of the Post Office is already private sector custom. There is no argument. The Post Office is there as an organisation to serve business,
I, too, read the debates in another place very carefully, as did the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. Shadow spokesmen were challenged: if they were going to change the rules and allow the Stationery Office, notwithstanding that it was a public sector executive agency, to go out into the market and compete for private sector customers with the rest of the industry, was the Shadow Chancellor prepared to change the rules in order to allow it to do that? Mr. Brown made it very clear in his efforts to convince investors from Tokyo to Singapore and wherever, and in this country, that the rules were to be applied every bit as strictly as they have been. That has been said many times. Yet in relation to a particular case Opposition spokesmen cheerfully say that the rules can be broken to allow the Stationery Office to compete as much as it likes; it could still have access to privileged borrowing. Would that still be part of the public sector debt?
The trouble is, there is an enormous hole in the arguments of the two noble Lords opposite. They want to see the Stationery Office flourish; I accept completely their good faith in that matter--and indeed, reading from the sales puff in the information pack, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, pointed out that there would be a useful and successful organisation that would be offered for sale to the private sector. But if we want a successful Stationery Office, it must have the ability to compete for the other suppliers' customers, just as those other suppliers are now free to compete for the customers of the Stationery Office. We have faced this dilemma in the case of quite a number of industries. The answer was the same in every case. It needs to have the freedom to compete that is given to the private sector.
Furthermore, we have seen huge increases in efficiency following the privatisations. The disciplines of the market, of the financial world, are more effective in keeping an organisation up to scratch than is the ability to question a Minister at the Dispatch Box, or even having a Minister in front of a Select Committee upstairs. Those are the sanctions on a public sector organisation. If you know that you will go out of business if you fail, that is likely to be a very much better bet for the success of the business. The real argument here is that the Stationery Office is currently neither one thing nor another. Its customers can go elsewhere. It cannot. Therefore, the case for privatisation is overwhelming.
Perhaps I might just for a second have the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, to respond to a point in his speech. I enjoyed it very much indeed, but we were led to believe that the privatisation of the Stationery Office spelt the end of the state itself. It was seen as part of a huge process of dismantling the entire state edifice. The noble Lord took a number of selected texts from my noble friend Lady Thatcher and others to try to justify his statement. For all the noble Lord's
There is nothing contradictory about them at all. When it comes to supplying this House and another place, whether it is a matter of the provision of Hansard or the printing of papers or Acts of Parliament, the contract that will need to be made by the supplier has to be, as the Offices Committee recommends, very tight, very tough and very specific, with completely watertight conditions. We do not know that yet. There will be an opportunity.
That having been done--and there may be other public sector purchasers who will want similar tough contracts--I want the Stationery Office to be free to compete in the rest of the market as freely as it can, whatever it wishes to be called. There are any number of examples of public sector bodies that were privatised over recent years and achieved just that: first-class service to their continuing public sector customers, while at the same time being free to compete with their private sector competitors. I understand the objections, and it is interesting that it is both present and past members of the Labour Party who take this objection. They want to see the Stationery Office being competed against, but not free to compete with the rest of the market. That is the logic of what they say. To my mind, that is nonsense.
Lord McNally: My Lords, as your Lordships will see from the Order Paper, this is a maiden speech. It gives me great personal pleasure to make my maiden in a debate opened by the noble Viscount, Lord Cranborne. I am afraid the McNallys have not troubled Garter King of Arms as often as the Cecils over the centuries, but our paths did cross in that we were part of that highly talented 1979 intake to the other place after the general election. The noble Viscount then left the other place voluntarily, and I left by public demand! Nevertheless, it is a pleasure to be back under the same roof.
The noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, tells the tale of, when he started his distinguished parliamentary career, overhearing two of his new colleagues saying, "Don't know what the place is coming to; they've let my tailor in now". I was worried over the past week that I might hear, "Don't know what the place is coming to; they've let my spin doctor in now". The truth is that over the past 30 years my career in Whitehall and Westminster has been spent trying to help a large number of noble Lords on both sides of the House get the right message to the right person at the right time. In case any of them are getting worried, I do not intend to start naming names this evening, except one. For seven years I had the honour and pleasure of working with the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan. Those were periods of great personal pride for me. The only thing that gives me any sense of embarrassment these days is that, with the impetuosity
The only other comment I make on my past life is that, as someone who has worked and still works in public relations, I know that the relationship between my industry and this House is of continuing concern to your Lordships. From a personal point of view, I intend to set standards of probity for others to follow. But in considering that relationship and lobbying, I hope that the House, in a search for political correctness, does not cut itself off from ideas, information and opinion. Along that road the only winner is an already over-powerful and over-secretive Executive.
Today we are discussing one of those curious proposals which are often the death rattle of a dying administration. In his speech, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, could not understand the misgivings on this side of the House. I think they could be summarised in the phrase, "a sense of dignity". The proposal seems to be one of a collection of measures in which the Government have lost all sense of dignity in what they are trying to do. The noble Lord dismissed the information pack which was put out for the benefit of Members in preparation for this debate. I know that Ministers have not used it but this side of the House has done so. That information pack suddenly became, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, a sales prospectus and indeed a sales puff. I found the information extremely helpful, as I noticed did the noble Lord, Lord Richard. It tells us that HMSO is,
It is clear that we are not dealing with any lame duck but with a market leader. Not only that, it is a market leader which at the present time has the confidence of both Houses of Parliament in providing prompt, accurate and secure services which are essential to the efficient working of Parliament and Westminster. Ministers are willing to set that organisation adrift. As my noble friend Lord Jenkins said, there can be no guarantee of jobs, location or even ultimate ownership. Again, I disagree profoundly with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. There is a difference between what I would call a stable-door-shutting action after some mess and the accountability of Ministers in this House and in the other place at the Dispatch Box.
When he spoke on 13th December the noble Lord, Lord Hayhoe, made a valid point when he said that a decade ago undoubtedly Captain Robert Maxwell and his companies would have been the leading contenders for the purchase of HMSO. He rightly warned the House:
As I said, stable-door-slamming guarantees are of no value in such circumstances.
On these Benches we have acknowledged that over the past 15 years, through their process of privatisation, the Government have produced some outstanding British companies from the slumbering giants in the
But in examining a case such as the one we are debating today, my mind goes back to over a decade ago when I switched on the television and saw one of the first television broadcasts from this House. There was a maiden speech by Lord Stockton. In that speech he made the remarks about privatisation and likened it to selling the family silver or a much loved Canaletto. It seems to me that having got rid of quite a lot of the family silver and Canalettos, we are now chopping up a Chippendale for firewood. It is the use and application of ideology to something which needs much more commonsense. I am still not clear as to how the Government intend to get the authority of both Houses for these plans. It would have been more straightforward, before they set off on elaborate consultations and putting out their puff pieces to the private sector, if they had asked in either House for a straight yes or no to the question "Do you want HMSO privatised?" I suspect that we all know why they did not do so. But this House has already indicated that this debate is not the last word on the subject. There will be need for further information and for a proper decision to be made by the House on whether or not it wants this privatisation to proceed.
The best that can be said from what we have heard today from the Government is a judgment--a judgment which perhaps the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor would go along with--of "not proven". Until it is proven, Ministers can expect no support from these Benches, nor, I suspect, from many other parts of the House.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, it falls to me to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on the very thoughtful speech that he delivered to your Lordships. The noble Lord has been in public office for nearly 30 years. He first emerged into semi-public life, as noble Lords may well be aware, as chairman of the students' union at University College. He became a leading officer in the National Union of Students and thereafter went into politics, first, as a research assistant and later as an assistant secretary to the illustrious Fabian Society. Amongst its members there have been known to be members of the Government Benches. From there the noble Lord progressed into the Labour Party headquarters itself. He became an adviser to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and later to the Prime Minister of the day, Mr. Harold Wilson, and to the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan. During that time he became a Member of Parliament of the Labour interest. In 1981 he moved sideways from the Labour Party to the Social Democratic Party and has continued to serve in public life in that way.
With advancing years, many of your Lordships become accustomed to vertical movement up or down, as the case may be. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, has
Possibly because of his most attractive countenance and because of his history, I cast an eye over the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, during the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead. If he felt some amusement or pleasure at the speech when listening, it certainly did not show in his face. He appeared to be most remarkably discomfited. But I must congratulate him on regaining his poise. Of course, I shall have to deal in due course with some of his arguments.
The Stationery Office first came under review in recent times when your Lordships were considering a development the government of the time called the Next Steps agencies. As the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, indicated in her reply to me the other day, HMSO has been a Next Steps agency since 1980 and is subject to Next Steps agency rules. Your Lordships will recall that one of the purposes of the establishment of the Next Steps agencies was to rid Ministers of direct responsibility for the detailed operations of agencies under their control. The rules are carefully laid down.
In December 1989 the Treasury published a document seeking to allay what it foresaw as public apprehension about the accountability to Parliament of the Next Steps agencies. Paragraph 5.1 states:
Therefore the status of HMSO is not in any way in dispute. The Government gave an undertaking that all Next Steps agencies shall remain accountable to Parliament. The matter was discussed in your Lordships' House in early 1990, after a previous discussion in another place on the Government Trading Bill. The Government Trading Bill expressly provided for changes in financing procedure and also for the complete delegation of responsibility from Ministers down to the agencies, so much so that some of us were apprehensive at that time that the bringing in of the Next Steps agencies, whether existing or to be, under the Government Trading Act of that year, would expose them to privatisation.
It is in that regard that the Government gave a number of assurances, which I have no doubt were made in good faith at the time but which enabled that measure to go through, largely after consultation between Her Majesty's Opposition and Her Majesty's Government, in which at that time I played a leading part in conjunction with the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. During the course of the debate on Second Reading I asked if he would say whether the measure itself would lead to privatisation or was a first step in that direction. He replied,
That was the context within which the debates took place on the Next Steps agencies. The noble Earl went even further in making pertinent observations and giving undertakings which still have some validity today because HMSO is still a Next Steps agency. In the course of the Committee stage of the Government Trading Bill, I asked the Minister a question in these terms,
The noble Earl was kind enough to give an undertaking in these terms,
All the way through the proceedings on the Next Steps agencies, including those existing which includes HMSO, those undertakings still hold; they have not been repudiated in any way. Speaking again on 12th June 1990 the noble Earl said,
It has never been suggested--indeed it has almost been denied--that the passing of any primary legislation will be necessary to effect the change. That is something to which we all should pay attention.
I could go on for a long time, almost to the point of being repetitious, on government undertakings given at that time regarding privatisation; that if it ever did happen--with increasing remoteness--it would need primary legislation. I sincerely hope that the Leader of the House will take note of the demand by my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition that we are given a proper occasion upon which a vote may be taken as to whether privatisation shall be allowed to proceed. In the light of their own undertakings, I should have thought it would be at least honourable for primary legislation to be brought forward, as was originally stated in this House.
The principal reason for the Government deciding to privatise appears to have been omitted. I hate to mention it--one does not like to mention money too much in this place. However, in view of government finances at the present time it may not have escaped your Lordships'
Why do not noble Lords come clean about this and admit that we are in the dying stages of a Parliament and that what the Government are desperately trying to do now, aside from raising money, is to make quite sure that when the next Labour Government come into office power will be retained in the private sector, where, increasingly, the Government's own placemen have been put over the past two or three years, who are likely to be reinforced by those who have already volunteered that they will not be standing again at the next election?
This is a disreputable step by the Government of which they should be thoroughly ashamed and which goes against every undertaking expressed or implied when the matter was considered in 1990. I sincerely hope that even at this stage they will have the decency and honour to withdraw it.
Lord Burnham: My Lords, in the debate following the Minister's Statement in the summer I asked by noble friend Lady Blatch by what name the privatised HMSO was likely to be known. This was not, as I pointed out at the time, a frivolous remark--and I repeat that now--but because I wished to ascertain where the new organisation would stand in the commercial world.
Although I note from the information pack that last year HMSO Manchester Print and Logistics lost an Inland Revenue contract, HMSO--considerable parts of HMSO, I should say--is largely protected against competition. The successful applicant for the privatised business is unlikely to enjoy this protection. It would be illogical to offer such protection in any aspect of the work because a company either is or is not privatised. It cannot have it both ways. My noble friend the Leader of the House said that it would now be able to compete fully, but it is also likely to be competed with fully. It cannot have it both ways; or if it attempted to do so it would be likely to face strong comments from the Opposition.
Although it is not the convention so to do, I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who, sadly, is not in his place, on his powerful and reasoned maiden speech. I would say that he showed all the traditional non-controversial air of F.E. Smith in another place.
In his speech the noble Lord, Lord Richard, commended the information pack and, if I may sum up what he said, asked why the Government wished to privatise HMSO when the information pack spoke so highly of it. As my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding pointed out, this is a sales document. The opening words of the information pack are:
In those circumstances, they were bound to produce what is in effect a prospectus for sale. The information pack is produced by Coopers & Lybrand and I am only too well aware of the case that Coopers & Lybrand seeks to make on any company which it wishes to sell. Therefore, what the information pack said, and what the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said, must be treated with a certain amount of reserve.
In the December debate the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, noted the increase in the cost of Hansard in another place of 1,500 per cent. between 1979 and 1995--from 45p to £7.50. I have not made quite certain of the new pricing policy for Hansard, although of course the price of Hansard in this House today is £2.50 compared with £4.20 on 13th December, the day of the Statement. But, overall, I can find very little justification for the high prices charged by HMSO for its publications.
Going through my bookshelves--this may show my interest--I find that the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978, reprinted in 1993, costs £23.80; the Broadcasting Act 1990, reprinted in 1995, costs £19.90. In contrast, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, reprinted in 1980, costs £4.50 and the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963, reprinted in 1984, costs £6.
These costs and these increases are too high. Newsprint and paper of similar grades cost £220 a tonne in 1979. As the noble Lord said, Hansard cost 45p. Newsprint went up to £425 a tonne in 1988-89 but then dropped by up to 35 per cent. with discounts which were accepted throughout the industry. In 1996 the cost is £495 a tonne. Hansard costs £7.20. These figures--an increase of 125 per cent.--may be said to be less than the increase in the cost of living.
Paper is the highest cost in printing. Behind it comes labour. The major reduction in the number of staff employed in the industry over the same period means that there has been a massive reduction in costs. So there should be. There has been a massive reduction in print costs everywhere because of the introduction of what has laughingly been known as new technology, and it is very surprising that the reduction in costs for HMSO for those aspects of HMSO which concern purely printing has not been very much greater.
The Official Report and other HMSO publications require speed of printing since they have to be immediately distributed. Other print work does not quite have the same requirements. While delay cannot be accepted, it is possible to fit publication into a schedule and by so doing achieve enormous economies of cost. In the case of newspapers, the demise of hot metal has, curiously, made the newspapers less up-to-date than they were. But the fact that a publisher no longer has to store quantities of lead over a considerable area, with considerable weight and considerable costs, means that reproduction of papers of all kinds, largely achieved by facsimile, is easier and far quicker, with little need to carry the vast stocks which were necessary in the past.
I suspect that any possible purchaser, on looking at the books and operation of HMSO, will find himself in an Aladdin's cave. In the debate the other day on the
It is difficult not to avoid the view that the products of certain parts of HMSO--not, of course, all, for much of the business is in competition with the private sector--are overpriced or uncompetitively priced or inefficiently managed. As a newspaper manager of the 1970s and 1980s, as the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, will confirm, I know inefficient management of a printing business when I see it. However, it has to be said, to be fair to managers of those days, that life was not made easy by the noble Baroness's predecessors, particularly Lord Briginshaw, and her colleagues in other print unions.
But in all the conclusion is inescapable. The privatised HMSO will be very different from the one we know today and probably thinner and more profitable, with increased sales and turnover resulting from reduced costs and prices. There must be very many who, like myself before I entered your Lordships' House, would have liked to have acquired many of the HMSO publications but were prevented by the excessive charges made. It must be in everyone's interest for the public to be better informed about the operation of government and ancillary matters. It cannot be impossible by keeping HMSO in the public sector, but by paying greater attention as to how it operates. But if it can be done without risk by privatisation and at no cost, provided standards are maintained--and that is the all important matter to which all noble Lords have paid great attention--the view I take on the matter is, "Why not?".
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde: My Lords, before I make my contribution I would like to declare an interest which I regard as an honourable one. I was a regional secretary for the printing union that covered the north west. In fact in the north west we had a large HMSO establishment, but it is much diminished now. I later became general secretary and negotiated across the board the national agreement that we had with HMSO. I am today still a member of that union.
I address my remarks to the welfare of the employees of HMSO and how they and I see the proposed changes. As the noble Viscount the Leader of the House said, HMSO employed about 6,000 people and there are now just over 2,000. Similar reductions are true of a whole range of manufacturing industries. As change has been introduced, numbers have been reduced. Much of the debate both here and in the other place has concentrated, understandably, on London. But there are establishments in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Bristol, Birmingham and Norwich, which has been mentioned. In Norwich there are about 900 people employed, mainly civil servants. There are also establishments in Leeds and Manchester, where I come from--and, by the
As has already been said in this debate, HMSO was founded in 1786 to make sure that corruption in public purchasing did not occur in parliamentary work. The reason it was set up was an honourable one. It is perhaps right that the age of the organisation is mentioned. I say that because today we tend to think that if something is very old--I do not include this Chamber--it is not necessarily relevant to a modern market place. But one can look at the matter in another way, and I do. HMSO would not have survived all that time if it had not changed and kept up with the times. That is why the employees feel that this move by the Government is potentially destructive for them.
It is not as though the employees have not changed. The noble Viscount referred--rightly--to the reduction in the workforce. If one looks at the statement of accounts annually presented to Parliament by HMSO, in 1993 there was £9.5 million for redundancy and early retirement paid out of the profit that HMSO made, not paid by the taxpayer. Last year's accounts, the latest ones, show that £8.2 million has been set aside for redundancies; so there is continual revision.
It is not as though HMSO has not met the targets set by the Treasury; it has met them. It is not as though HMSO has not made a profit; it has made a profit. It is still the largest print buyer in the United Kingdom. Much of the work that comes through HMSO is produced in the private sector. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, that the private sector benefits substantially through HMSO and the contracts it negotiates.
From the point of view of employees working at HMSO, they faced the trading fund that my noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington mentioned, agency status, market testing and only a few months ago the establishment of what is called "free standing businesses", obviously approved in discussion. Yet before the ink was dry on the paper what happens? We have the announcement about privatisation.
Much has been said about government departments being given the opportunity in the early 1980s to purchase their print anywhere. I was a union officer at that time. I can remember people saying, "Of course, you know what the real name of the game is, don't you? HMSO will not get any contracts. It will be wiped off the surface of the earth because it will not be able to compete". All those prophets of doom and gloom are absolutely wrong. HMSO has competed, has changed considerably and has been and is making a profit.
Among the papers put in the Printed Paper Office for noble Lords was the Coopers & Lybrand review. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Burnham, was not saying, "Well, this is a prospectus. It has a lot of good news, but we do not believe a word of it". Coopers & Lybrand
One of the biggest accounts of HMSO is the Ministry of Defence. Its market testing contract is due for renewal in six months' time, just around the time when, if this privatisation goes through, the prospectus will probably be available. I ask the Minister who is to reply what will happen about that. Are the Government going to put that out for market testing? That would certainly be something that I would want to know if I was buying a company which was going through privatisation.
Much has been made in the debate about the 10 per cent. drop in the turnover of HMSO. But we cannot treat the organisation in isolation. We have to look at the recession and the cut-backs by the Government in some of their efficiency moves. If we consider printing generally in the United Kingdom, thousands of jobs have been lost and much work has been cut back because of the recession. I do not accept that there are any sound, proven business reasons why HMSO should be privatised. I do not ask noble Lords to take my word for that. In his reply it will be interesting if the Minister can confirm that as many as 40 approaches have already been made expressing an interest in purchasing the organisation. I was told today that the figure is 60. One does not get that number of bids for a lame duck. It is quite clear that this is a very ripe cherry for the picking as far as the private sector is concerned.
On 18th December in another place the Minister said:
On what grounds did the Minister make that statement? What proof, what evidence did the Minister have for making that statement? All the evidence is that in a privatisation, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, said, people face increasing redundancies. As regards the Minister's view that that is the best way of safeguarding the future of the staff, I have to tell noble Lords that they feel betrayed by this decision. If the Government are so sure that it is in the best interests of the staff, why not ask them at this time of empowerment? Why not ask the staff what they think? Do they not have a stake in this business? Have they not made a major contribution in its development?
The noble Viscount said that the TUPE protection would be there. What protection? It is minimal, and does not apply to reorganisation. I say that because the Government's decision is to privatise the printing and publishing sides together as one arm. Anyone who knows the printing industry is aware that that is not the model which is applied today. Printing and publishing are separate. One just needs to look at what has happened. Printing contracts are hived off to another company; the publishing is dealt with by a separate company. In that kind of reorganisation clearly a coach and horses could be driven through TUPE. There would
Understandably, one of the major concerns of the staff is their pension scheme. The Minister in another place said that the pension scheme is non-contributory. It is not. Employees do not have pension contributions deducted from their salaries, but in the annual negotiation a notional amount of 9 per cent. is allocated for pension contributions. So, the Government aim to hive off the organisation, with TUPE protecting wages at the pay-cheque level, on top of which is a notional 9 per cent., and the Minister says that "broadly comparable" terms will be agreed for the pension scheme. What does "broadly comparable" mean? At the moment the HMSO pension scheme is salary and service-related. However, the drift in the private sector is towards money purchase schemes. Furthermore, the fact that the pension scheme is to be transferred is no guarantee that it will remain the same. Perhaps that is why the Minister said that it will be "broadly comparable". Understandably, that is a key issue for the employees.
I say that that is a key issue because if one considers the age and service profiles of HMSO's employees, one sees that long service is the norm in that organisation. Indeed, I do not know of many organisations with a turnover of over £300 million a year in which the highest paid executive receives £73,000. Is this to be another privatisation involving "golden eggs" for the company that buys the organisation? "Public service" means something at HMSO. It means something because the employees have invested their life's work in it.
Perhaps I may touch briefly on another important issue from the perspective of the employees. In both another place and this place, understandably I suppose, Members have been concerned about parliamentary publications and about "our" Hansard which we want every day, preferably being delivered before 7.30 a.m. Although I understand that, the parliamentary publications side of HMSO accounts for only 10 per cent. of the business. HMSO is accountable to Parliament. I suggest that that accountability carries with it a responsibility on Parliament to the employees of that organisation. When considering this privatisation, I suggest that we cannot consider only the parliamentary area; we must look at the organisation in the round and bear in mind Parliament's responsibility to the employees. In effect, we are the board of directors.
The noble Viscount referred to TUPE and pensions. However, with the greatest of respect to him, I must say that those undertakings were not assurances from the employees' point of view. Furthermore, I am not clear what is meant by "Parliament deciding". Does that mean that Parliament will decide what happens to the parliamentary publications side of HMSO's contracts--that is, to 10 per cent. of its contracts--or does it mean that Parliament will decide what happens to HMSO in the round? I should like an answer to that question.
I should also like the Minister to answer a question that was put to him by a number of noble Lords. I refer to the matter of who is going to decide. As my noble
Looking back, I can only come to the conclusion that the decision was not really made in 1995. The decision to privatise HMSO was taken all those years ago at the beginning of the 1980s. This has been a step-by-step approach, seeking to get the organisation into shape in order to privatise it. I hope that I am wrong, but I think that that is a reasonable assessment. If that is the case, I would regard it as an act of vandalism and dogma. That is what the employees will feel about it. I urge the Government to think again. Why sell off something which does not cost the nation anything, which provides an adequate and full service to the nation and which has a loyal workforce?
Lord Hayhoe: My Lords, first I must add my congratulations to a personal friend of some 30 years' standing who in this House I must refer to as the noble Lord, Lord McNally. We have co-operated together across party lines and for non-party activities in a variety of situations for a long time and I am delighted to see him join us in this place.
I begin by paying tribute to HMSO. I had ministerial responsibility for it in rather happier times than those referred to by my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding, as I had that responsibility from 1981 to 1985. It was a time of rapid change which was extremely well managed by the then controller and chief executive, Bill Sharp. We managed to bring the whole operation up to date, to make it much more efficient and to win our contracts within the public service because of the quality and pricing of the service offered. I say that in response to the predictions which the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, has just made. I think that in those days HMSO did extremely well.
Change has continued apace, however, and the public sector market has declined. The turnover of HMSO has reduced by some 10 per cent. since 1990. The figures quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, when he said that turnover had risen from £260 million to over £375 million over 15 years disguised the fact that HMSO's turnover has been in decline for the past five years. One needs to take that into account if one is to have a proper appreciation of the situation. However, I well understand that that point was not made baldly in what was essentially a selling document prepared by Coopers and Lybrand.
Alas, job losses have become more likely as a result of the changes that have taken place. As I understand the position, the Government believe that by allowing access to new markets, privatisation will protect jobs,
All that is of the essence of political controversy, as was manifestly clear from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and from the somewhat over-the-top rhetorical flourishes of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead.
I want to stand back from those political issues and to concentrate on the special requirements of Parliament. Having come from another place, I can testify, as can others, to the vital role that HMSO has played over the years in providing Hansard, Order Papers, Bills, amendments, committee reports and the rest. One also recalls the awful difficulties when supplies were disrupted by industrial action several years ago. Those incidents were referred to specifically by my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding. Taking all that into account, I am delighted that the Government have made it abundantly clear that the requirements of Parliament will be paramount--that meeting those requirements is an essential prerequisite to proceeding with the sale of what will become the Stationery Office. That has been said clearly and in terms in both Houses of Parliament and repeated at different levels of ministerial and government involvement.
Parliamentary requirements and concerns were well set out in another place in Madam Speaker's letter to the Lord President of the Council dated 28th November 1995; and in the report of the Offices Committee, which we accepted earlier today, those requirements so far as concerns this House were also specified.
The questions that need to be answered are: how will the Government and the House authorities guarantee that those onerous parliamentary requirements will be met? I accept of course that that amounts to only roughly 10 per cent. of HMSO's total activity, but so far as concerns Parliament, those are vital matters, and Ministers have made it clear that the thing will not proceed unless the parliamentary requirements are met. They have to be met, not just for a few years, not just until some financial difficulties threaten the privatised Stationery Office, or if it becomes subject to a takeover bid, but for decades to come. What long-term safeguards can be established to ensure that that will happen? How will the safeguards be structured and maintained? What sanctions will be available to this House or to another place if things go wrong? Will the availability of parliamentary papers be guaranteed if things go wrong in some way or another with the new, privatised Stationery Office? What will happen if the service becomes rather shoddy, and the papers begin to be delayed? How do we deal with that? Will it be possible for contractual arrangements to be entered into, which will ensure, so far as is humanly possible, that both Houses of Parliament will receive the service they demand and which has been made the essential prerequisite to proceeding with these matters?
I wonder whether the lawyers will be able to devise what is described by my noble friend Lady Blatch as the comprehensive contractual package that will take full account of the needs of Parliament. It is easy to say
The Earl of Northesk: My Lords, I shall be brief, if only because my contribution is somewhat more mundane than that of noble Lords who have already spoken. I speak from my interest in information technology. The particular role upon which I wish to focus is the role of HMSO as printer and publisher of the Official Report, which amounts, as the noble Baroness said, to 10 per cent. of the business of HMSO.
It could be argued that the newspaper media are no longer the natural vehicle of mass communication; that they have been superseded by the broadcast media. In a very real sense therefore, the principle of communicating our business to the people, via the expedient of the printed page, may be something of an anachronism. That begs all sorts of questions. Should our proceedings be broadcast in full by both television and radio on a national basis? Perhaps a little more facetiously (but not, it must be said beyond the realms of possibility, and a question that I pose in all seriousness) should Parliament go digital?
More than that, even as we speak, there is in all probability bandwidth on the Internet that is being used to discuss the issue of whether Hansard should be on-line. I know that to be the case, because I have been following precisely that thread in the uk.politics newsgroup. It is that that intrigues me. Whatever the future of HMSO, can our proceedings be delivered to the public in a medium appropriate to our information age? Can we expect that the Official Report will be available on floppy disc, on CD-Rom, or on both? Will Hansard establish its own "web" site?
I appreciate that such developments are not without their problems; for example, with respect to copyright. Nor would I anticipate that any IT-driven method of communicating our proceedings could or would replace the printed page entirely. Be that as it may, we need to consider carefully how it is that we wish to deliver the text of our proceedings to the wider world. In considering that we should ask ourselves whether government--any government--would meet the costs involved. My impression is that history suggests that they would not.
I conclude with a salutary observation from the "Interface" section of The Times of 22nd November last year:
In our era of environmentalist concern, of sustainable development, of financial constraint, that fact should guide our thinking as to how our proceedings will be delivered to the general public in the future and as to the future of HMSO.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, I rise to support the arguments put forward by my noble friend the Leader of the House. I have to say also that I very much enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, when he exposed so much management-speak gobbledegook of the kind with which we are all so much afflicted nowadays. I must say also that if HMSO has been subjected to all the rubbish that the noble Lord so wittily exposed, I am a little surprised that it has become the commercial success that he appeared to accept that it has become.
I fear that I part company with the noble Lord, Lord Richard, when he seems to indicate--perhaps I misunderstood him--that partly because HMSO has become a commercial success, it should not be privatised. That is a point which was made by other noble Lords. I do not follow the argument that only over-manned and loss-making old state industries are those which are suitable for privatisation. I should have thought that it was more advantageous to privatise what the noble Baroness, Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, described as a "ripe cherry". Surely that will allow more stringent guarantees as to future quality to be inserted into the sale agreement. I believe that was an argument which troubled my noble friend Lord Hayhoe.
The main question I wish to put to my noble friend on the Front Bench concerns what I hope may be one aspect of HMSO's increased innovation and development, which my noble friend the Leader of the House rightly pointed out should flow from privatisation.
It is at the moment very difficult fully to understand your Lordships' proceedings as printed in Hansard for all our Committee, Report, and Third Reading debates. I say that because the Marshalled List and the groupings of amendments are not printed in Hansard. So if someone outside your Lordships' House just acquires Hansard--at a price which I agree with my noble friend should reduce after privatisation--but does not have those additional items, your Lordships' debates are, in parts, very difficult to follow. For instance, only the first amendment in a grouping is at the moment printed, and noble Lords do not always repeat their amendments when they come to speak to them.
I would like to use this opportunity briefly to pay tribute to the endless courtesy, accuracy and good humour of our Hansard writers and the Hansard office--
Next Section
Back to Table of Contents
Lords Hansard Home Page


text:
Simplify your recording, appraisal, tax and content management
County governments manage a wide variety of complex of services, while adhering to budgets and keeping public officials and citizens happy. The Eagle product suite helps county agencies become more effective with advanced functionality easily accessible through an intuitive, straightforward software interface, enabling county workers and officials to deliver exceptional service to their constituents. From tax billing software to record management software, the Eagle product suite gives the county workforce the software they need to do their job effectively and efficiently.
Eagle offers a single-vendor solution for a true enterprise-wide solution. Because our solutions are built on the same innovative, scalable platform, you can customize each solution to meet your unique requirements — and still seamlessly interface with other departments. That means you can easily share information between departments to reduce data entry for staff, while creating a higher-level of accuracy and easier integration for reporting and analysis.
Records & Documents
Eagle Clerk
Eagle Fraud Guard
Eagle Marriage
Eagle Minutes
Eagle Quickdocs
Eagle Recorder
Eagle OCR
Eagle Payment Processing
Eagle Web
Tyler Content Manager Enterprise Edition
Appraisal & Tax
Eagle Appraiser
Eagle Assessor
Eagle GIS
Eagle Treasurer
Eagle Web
Transforming Communities
with Tyler Nexus
Tyler Nexus is designed for local government. It connects essential software applications — appraisal, tax collections, records, community development, utility billing, asset maintenance, finance, administration and schools — on a distributed platform.
Tyler Nexus allows your organization to operate independently while sharing data and connecting processes between agencies and across jurisdictions.
Learn more about Tyler Nexus »
Only Tyler has the vision, expertise and passion to help you create connected, thriving communities across city, county, and regional boundaries.
Learn more about Connected Communities »
Online Contact Form »
Tyler's professionals provide industry-leading client services, including implementation, data conversion, training and technical support. Many members of our expert team worked in the public sector prior to joining Tyler, giving them in-depth knowledge that they bring to you every day. When you work with Tyler, you don't just gain a technology solution to simplify your day-to-day operations — you gain a partner who is here to support you at every turn.
Unlike many software companies that serve many vertical industries, at Tyler we focus only on the public sector. That means we not only understand the unique opportunities and challenges you face every day, but we can also better anticipate your technology needs and create, deliver and support products that have the right features with the right technology at the right time.
We also subscribe to an evergreen philosophy, which means we evolve the technology and functionality of our products over time. Through ongoing updates, we can successfully and seamlessly transition you through each generation of technology.
And through our perpetual license commitment, once you purchase a Tyler county software product, you'll never make another license investment for a new version, upgrade or enhancement to that product.


text:
• Download Free Sample Movie #1 •
• Download Free Sample Movie #2 •
blonde teen
look. The one that says ?�?I want to fuck you right now?�� and that is exactly the look that Elena has as she sits on her bed reading a porno mag. When she is joined by Leha it does not take him long to be encouraging her mouth down on his dick. She
sucks cock
like she?��s making love to it before getting on her hands and knees for a solid fucking. Leha bangs the hell out of her until he has to pull out and blow his load all over her titties.
Download Free Sample Movie #3
Download Free Sample Movie #4
don't wait! amateur teen movies waiting
for you inside! get your access today!
All persons depicted herein were at least 18 years of age:
18 USC 2257 Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statements
Copyright c 2009 S and S Royal Ltd.


text:
COLUMBUS AREA, OHIO -- These windows are the worst!! There is NO seal around the edges where the wood meets the glass so in the winter the cold air pours in. When the cold air meets the heated air of our home it creates an inch of condensation on the glass which then turns to ICE on the inside of our windows. The water/ice that sits on the edge of the wood creates mold and ruins the finish, and subsequently is rotting the wood on all the windows in our home!
We have called the distributer over and over, and when they finally sent someone out from Windsor, the rep claimed it was the humidity level in the home. First off, we measure the humidity constantly, and it runs anywhere from 25-38% which is totally normal, even on the lower side of normal (Not to mention that we run our dehumidifier 24/7, 265 days a year!). Second, our patio doors have glass from floor to ceiling, but are manufactured by Anderson, and they "mysteriously" have never had any condensation on them, ever!!
Additionally, because the Windsor windows also leak on the top where the frame meets the actual house, many of the windows have become so warped that once you open them, you cannot get them closed again. Don't even get me started on the mold that grows on the upper frames because of the water that leaks in and is then trapped by the upper edge of the windows. Not only is this a structural and esthetic defect, but quite possibly dangerous to the health of our family. We are considering litigation. We live in a $300K+ home, and these horrible windows are of inexcusably poor quality. It is not just one or two windows, it is every single window in our home!
Dear Disgruntled -
I am sorry to hear of your frustration. Please know that Windsor Windows takes all reviews and customer calls very seriously.
Experts agree that air and water leakage in a home is complicated and can be due to many factors -- it is almost never the result of just one product. Often the windows are blamed when in actuality it is the installation, how the siding or flashing was applied, or a combination of factors. You mention "leak on the top where the frame meets the actual house." That suggests installation issues rather than a window issue. The "seal where the wood meets the glass" is a different and curious matter, since our windows are both tape- and silicone-glazed and use Super Spacer(R) dual-seal moisture barrier technology. Super Spacer is one of the most thermally efficient spacers in the marketplace, meeting or exceeding ENERGY STAR® guidelines in all zones.
I encourage you to call Windsor directly at 1-800-218-6186 from 8am-5pm Central Time, and ask for Betty Deemer in our Field Service department. She would be glad to discuss and gain a better understanding of your particular situation.
Best regards,


text:
Robust spatio-temporal latent variable models
Christmas, Jacqueline
Date issued
Thesis or dissertation
University of Exeter
Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) are widely-used mathematical models for decomposing multivariate data. They capture spatial relationships between variables, but ignore any temporal relationships that might exist between observations. Probabilistic PCA (PPCA) and Probabilistic CCA (ProbCCA) are versions of these two models that explain the statistical properties of the observed variables as linear mixtures of an alternative, hypothetical set of hidden, or latent, variables and explicitly model noise. Both the noise and the latent variables are assumed to be Gaussian distributed. This thesis introduces two new models, named PPCA-AR and ProbCCA-AR, that augment PPCA and ProbCCA respectively with autoregressive processes over the latent variables to additionally capture temporal relationships between the observations. To make PPCA-AR and ProbCCA-AR robust to outliers and able to model leptokurtic data, the Gaussian assumptions are replaced with infinite scale mixtures of Gaussians, using the Student-t distribution. Bayesian inference calculates posterior probability distributions for each of the parameter variables, from which we obtain a measure of confidence in the inference. It avoids the pitfalls associated with the maximum likelihood method: integrating over all possible values of the parameter variables guards against overfitting. For these new models the integrals required for exact Bayesian inference are intractable; instead a method of approximation, the variational Bayesian approach, is used. This enables the use of automatic relevance determination to estimate the model orders. PPCA-AR and ProbCCA-AR can be viewed as linear dynamical systems, so the forward-backward algorithm, also known as the Baum-Welch algorithm, is used as an efficient method for inferring the posterior distributions of the latent variables. The exact algorithm is tractable because Gaussian assumptions are made regarding the distribution of the latent variables. This thesis introduces a variational Bayesian forward-backward algorithm based on Student-t assumptions. The new models are demonstrated on synthetic datasets and on real remote sensing and EEG data.
Christmas, J. and Everson, R. (2010). Temporally coupled Principal Component Analysis: a probabilistic autoregression method. In Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), Barcelona, 19th-23rd July 2010.
Christmas, J. and Everson, R. (2011). Robust autoregression: Student-t innovations using variational Bayes. IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 59(1):48-57.
Everson, Richard
Degree title
PhD in Computer Science
Qualification level
Qualification name


text:
There's something about barren trees in the winter time that's almost mystical.
As soon as I spotted this tree, I knew exactly what I wanted the final image to look like.
The triangle adds perfect symmetry to a living thing that is much too complex to be symmetrical, even though it appears that way from a distance.
If you'd like to add this photograph to your collection, you can purchase a print below.


text:
Cheap Linux VPS is one of the best server options that are currently replacing all other traditional options. There are many hosting companies that are dealing with the same and the most top-rated company amongst them is Cheapest Linux VPS. There are various reasons for using virtual server of this type and some of the major ones have been illustrated in details at https://cheapestlinuxvps.com. In this case, the software can be freely and easily downloaded and thus lots of costs can be saved. This is one of the greatest benefits for which this server is gaining so much popularity these days.
Cheap VPS hosting is so very affordable that even small business-concerns can even afford the same without thinking much about the budget. Uncountable websites can be opened without affecting internet speed and this is only possible with this server only. This server is very much flexible and thus it can be used independently. Unlimited bandwidth is available and the speed remains the same even in case of heavier downloads.
No compromises are found in this server rather you can enjoy unlimited features that are simply unbeatable and cannot be found within any other traditional servers. The server is much more improved than shared servers and you can make necessary alterations as per your necessity at any point of time. The company is currently promoting this server wide and spread so that the craze for the same can be created and the demand for it can be increased.
The Website: https://cheapestlinuxvps.com


text:
Past and present land tenure systems in Albania : patrilineal, patriarchal, family-centered
- 68_wp13.pdf (172.7Kb PDF)
- Author(s)
- Publisher
- Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Date
- 1998
- Subject(s)
- Land tenure Albania; Right of property Albania; Inheritance and succession Albania; Albania Social conditions
- Series
- Working paper, no. 13. Albania series
- Abstract
- This paper attempts to evaluate whether Albanian rural social structure has changed to the extent that individual rights and protection of those rights have become important policy questions. If the evaluation suggests that rural Albanians retain the set of family-oriented norms and beliefs that are based primarily on patriarchalism and patrilineal inheritance, we must address the following questions: How appropriate is the mixture of western law that emulates individualistic notions of property rights with the customary family-tenure system of rural Albania? What are the likely problems that could emerge during the transition given a potential conflict between family notions of ownership and individual notions of ownership? This paper discusses five broad issues: the contemporary importance of family ownership, the role of the patriarch, the contemporary inheritance procedures, the vulnerability of specific groups of women, and the structure of the Albanian family.
- Description
- iii, 31 p.
- Permanent link
- http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/22001
- Export
- Export to RefWorks


text:
I saw a ridiculous commercial on TV recently. It was a mimic game show and the point of the commercial was that soy milk and other non-dairy alternatives have a couple of ingredients, while dairy milk only has 1, so you should pick dairy because it's simple and has less ingredients. ::eyes roll::
I took the commercial as a sign that the harms of dairy are getting out there and the dairy industry is getting nervous. I'm sure if sales were as high as normal they wouldn't be running advertisements against their non-dairy competitors... nonetheless, dairy isn't just one ingredient. Just because they're not required to put what the cow was force-fed (corn, soy, etc., which invariably comes back out in their milk), plus note the antibiotics and hormones the animal was also given (also in the milk), and anything else that is artificially added doesn't mean it didn't happen ;) But this isn't a rant on dairy, because we all know how gross and bad for our bodies it is. If you don't know, this is a good start on why dairy is awful. I also recommend watching Forks Over Knives.
Now, let's talk plant-based milk! I have a video blog post, what is non-dairy milk?, but the topic is worth a little more exploration.
When people ask me which one they should purchase, my general answer is to find a plant-based milk you like and use it.If you don't like soy milk, that's fine. Try almond or rice or oat milk. Try different brands, too. There is a reason there are so many brands — they taste different. You might also prefer sweetened over unsweetened. The only milks I suggest avoiding are the coconut milk-based ones because they are so high in saturated fat (and they don't always work well in cooking and baking) and hemp milk because the earthy hemp flavor can be strong and not complementary to the flavors in your recipes. You can also make your own rice milk very easily. (You can also make your own almond milk and oat milk easily, but soy milk generally needs a machine).
What to look for when buying your non-dairy milk:
1. Make sure the plant-based milk you are using doesn't contain oil. Refrigerated milks tend to, but shelf-stable do not. The shelf-stable ones also tend to be cheaper, and the great thing about them is you can stock up so you never run out in the middle of the recipe.
2. If you trying to eat a low-fat diet, you might want pick the brand with the lowest amount of fat per serving. This tends to be rice or oat milk, as soy and almonds both are fairly rich in fat naturally. You can, however, find low-fat and fat-free soy milks. We like WestSoy's non fat soy milk but tend to buy unsweetened almond milk.
3. Pick the brand with the least number of ingredients.
4. Buy unsweetened if you can. If you need your plant-based milk sweetened, that's fine. Sugar is a scapegoat, not the biggest concern. A little sweetener in your plant-based milk is nothing to worry about — just make sure you're buying sweetened plain or vanilla, not chocolate or another flavor, which is basically a candy bar in a glass.
I predominantly use unsweetened almond milk in my cooking and baking, but I don't drink it by the glass or eat cereal. When I ate cereal, I used sweetened fat-free soy milk. Scott used to drink plant-based milk by the glass when he was transitioning to a plant-based diet (because he used to drink a lot of milk by the glass and habits are hard to break) and he liked sweetened soy milk or sweetened almond milk.
I find most people coming off milk like sweetened almond milk the best, but again, we all have our own tastes.
Finally, about that commercial. I can make rice milk (and almond milk) with just rice or almonds and water. So, I win on simplicity. LOL!


text:
The division of Rouyn-NorandaTémiscamingue comprises the following municipalities: Angliers (VL), Béarn (M), Belleterre (V), Duhamel-Ouest (M), Fugèreville (M), Guérin (CT), Kipawa (M), Laforce (M), Latulipe-et-Gaboury (CU), Laverlochère (M), Lorrainville (M), Moffet (M), Nédélec (CT), Notre-Dame-du-Nord (M), Rémigny (M), Saint-Bruno-de-Guigues (M), Saint-Édouard-de-Fabre (P), Saint-Eugène-de-Guigues (M), Témiscaming (V) and Ville-Marie (V).
It also comprises the part of the Ville de Rouyn-Noranda that corresponds to the following municipalities, as they existed on December 31, 2001: Arntfield (M), Bellecombe (M), Clericy (M), Cloutier (M), DAlembert (M), Destor (M), Évain (M), McWatters (M), Montbeillard (M), Mont-Brun (M), Rollet (M) and Rouyn-Noranda (V).
It also comprises the following Indian reserves: Kebaowek and Timiskaming, and the following Indian settlements: Hunter's Point and Winneway.
Lastly, it comprises the following unorganized territories: Laniel and Les Lacs-du-Témiscamingue.