For a centre-by-metabelian pro-$p$ group $G$ of type $\text{FP}_{2m}$, for some $m\geqslant 1$, we show that $\sup _{M\in {\mathcal{A}}}$ rk $H_{i}(M,\mathbb{Z}_{p})<\infty$, for all $0\leqslant i\leqslant m$, where ${\mathcal{A}}$ is the set of all subgroups of $p$-power index in $G$ and, for a finitely generated abelian pro-$p$ group $V$, rk $V=\dim V\otimes _{\mathbb{Z}_{p}}\mathbb{Q}_{p}$.

A group $G$ is self dual if every subgroup of $G$ is isomorphic to a quotient of $G$ and every quotient of $G$ is isomorphic to a subgroup of $G$. It is minimal non self dual if every proper subgroup of $G$ is self dual but $G$ is not self dual. In this paper, the structure of minimal non self dual groups is determined.

Let G be a p-group of maximal class of order pn. It is shown that the order of the group of all automorphisms of G centralizing the Frattini quotient takes the maximum value p2n−4 if and only if G is metabelian. A structure theorem is proved for the Sylow p-subgroup, Autp(G), of the automorphism group of G when G is metabelian. For p=2, Aut2(G) is the full automorphism group of G. For p=3, we prove a structure theorem for the full automorphism group of G.