Society members may rest assured that the SoG makes all necessary representations regarding the quality of indexing and other work being proposed to be let to contractors by government departments. We have very good relations with the various departments of government involved, and use those contacts to good effect, but the people we speak with cannot always tell us all the details. I am aware of many cases over the last 15 years where we have made our views known. Unfortunately, as with most other things, contracts are let to the lowest tenderer, and the family history world is relatively small. We rarely get to know about the proposed indexing in time to make sufficient impact on the initial stages of a proposal - generally the information only comes out once the specification has been written. On a number of occasions the SoG and the Federation of Family History Societies have made their views known and asked members to write in as individuals. This can be successful, if done at the right stage, as was done with the review of the Registration Service, where the whole proposal was sent back for a total rethink following around 2,500 responses. Also the proposed destruction of the medal cards was stopped by a large number of letters from organisations and individuals. Frank Hardy