The Journal is committed to openness and I was pleased several years ago to introduce a requirement for authors to make a declaration of their interests with regard to publication of their papers. Last year this requirement was extended to include editorials and items of correspondence (Wilkinson, 2001).

As an elected Honorary Officer (not a paid employee) of the Royal College of Psychiatrists I am required regularly to complete a Declaration of Competing Interests form. My form states that I have an annual renewal of a consultancy with Neurolink, sponsored by Wyeth (£2000 per annum). These forms are available to members of the College, and to nonmembers of the College at the discretion of the President, Registrar and the College Secretary.

The issues raised by Dr Wright were discussed by the Editorial Board in June 2001. To quote from the minutes of that meeting:

Following that decision, since October 2001, referees have been required to state explicitly if they have an interest in the publication of any paper they are asked to assess. If that is the case, they are required to return the manuscript without assessment.

It has always been the case that when I have an interest in a paper's publication by virtue of being a co-author, another nominated member of the Editorial Board acts as Editor for that paper. That person's identity is not divulged to me, and I am kept blind to the peer-review process as it applies to that manuscript. Since receipt of Dr Wright's letter (in April 2001, subsequent to the acceptance of another paper reporting work funded by Wyeth; Allgulander et al, 2001), the same procedure has been extended to any submission connected with Wyeth. Finally, in keeping with these developments, I am beginning the evaluation of open peer review as a policy from this month (i.e. all assessors will be required to identify themselves to authors).

I am doing what I can to address these important issues, and I am grateful to Dr Wright for this opportunity to clarify our procedures to our readers.