Filetab was developed by the National Computing Centre (NCC)[1] and originally used on ICL operating systems such as GEORGE 2/3 and VME, but ported to a large number of others.
The original architect of Filetab was Tom Barnard, who developed the program (LITA - LIst and TAbulate) for Morgan Crucible when employed by them as a programmer on an ICL 1902 from 1965–1968.
Its purpose was to produce simple ad hoc reports similar to those created with a plugboard on a punched card tabulator, bypassing the necessity to write an assembly language program in PLAN.
LITA could not be described as a programming language as it only required run-time parameters indicating field types and locations in records and no compilation.
In those days there was no concern by Morgan's regarding ownership or copyright when Barnard left to further develop the software as Filetab.