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This study of the 1973 Local Government Election in England and Wales shows that the position of a canal/date's name on the ballot paper can have an important effect in terms of the number of votes which he receives. In particular the lower-placed members of each party are quite seriously disadvantaged. Investigation into the relationship between this positional effect and other aspects of the election show that it occurs quite generally. A simple model is formulated which attempts to explain the phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Police Uplift Programme in England and Wales aims to recruit more than 20,000 new police officers into the service. There is little known about the potential consequences associated with a large-scale recruitment drive and the effect of introducing a younger cohort of officers into the ranks of the police. This article is based on a narrative review of 2,110 English-language titles including grey literature exploring the implications for the police who are younger in age and service workforce profile. Titles were identified through electronic and handsearching methods. Fifty-nine titles were assessed for inclusion, of which 48 were subject to a full-text review. The majority of papers were from North America. Three themes were identified from the review: (1) issues related to cultural considerations including younger officers' preference for transparent and linear relationships and highlighting an emphasis on public service; (2) well-being and work–life balance considerations; and (3) harnessing the skill base through effective recruitment and retention practices. The findings suggest that police forces can create a narrative for new recruits as adult learners committed to public service combined with enhanced leadership styles that prioritize teamwork, transparency, and personal development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family group conferences (FGCs) in child welfare share decision-making with family members by bringing the immediate and wider family together to make a plan to meet a child's needs. This paper reports survey findings on FGC provision in the UK in 2022 and explores whether in England the presence of an FGC service and the rate of FGC provision is associated with the rate of children in care, entering care, in kinship foster care and leaving care. Seventy-nine per cent (n  = 167) of local authorities in the UK provided FGCs to families, and 14 per cent (n  = 29) did not. Services that were more established offered a more diverse range of FGCs. The introduction of FGCs in English local authorities was associated with a higher rate of children in care, but also higher rates of kinship foster care, a key goal of FGCs where it is not possible for children to stay with their parents. Higher rates of FGCs were associated with more children leaving care, possibly due to reunification with birth families. To understand in more detail, the circumstances of children in and leaving care in local authorities with FGCs, individual data linkage studies are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial austerity has brought considerable pressure upon policing services in England and Wales in the past decade. For the British government, one mitigatory vehicle to alleviate this pressure is the expansion of police collaborative units operating across two or more police forces. To date however, such cross-force collaborations have been beset by a series of problems and progress has been inexorably slow. Drawing upon the reflections of police officers and staff involved at varying stages of cross-force collaborations, this paper explores why collaborations have so far largely failed. The paper argues that while the challenges of cross-force collaborations echo those of previous police efforts to work with external partners, these difficulties are intensified during cross-force collaborations in which partners present divergent policing agendas. As such, cross-force collaborations may be usefully understood as 'complex problems,' marking them out as particularly challenging and demanding new and distinct approaches to problem-solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges the conventional understanding among many legal ethicists that environmental harm can be a necessary, if regrettable, collateral effect of lawyerly work. It argues that lawyers sometimes do things that cost society too much and that legal ethics (being the rules of ethical conduct set out by regulators of lawyers and broader theories of 'good' lawyering) has the potential to act as a mediator on lawyers' environmental harm-causing action. The paper begins by examining lawyers' formal rules of professional conduct in England & Wales, showing how those rules require lawyers to provide active counselling to clients but do not fully address clients' legally permissible choices that may result in environmental harm. The paper then turns to theories of legal ethics that go beyond these baseline rules. Here, I argue that the dominant 'Standard Conception' of lawyers as neutral technicians is not only implausible in the context of environmental law but also fundamentally incomplete. The paper also considers the ethical implications of a lawyer's initial decision to represent a client. The commonly held belief that 'Everyone deserves legal advice' often masks a simple ethical choice, where lawyers prioritise commercial concerns over environmental considerations, unburdened by more complex ethical constraints. However, this rationalisation rests on unsound premises and frequently clashes with lawyers' personal moral boundaries; a problem I label 'Meatloaf Lawyering'. Ultimately, I argue that lawyers have significant ethical agency and that their professional obligations do not impede (and sometimes require) an active, ethically responsible stance towards environmental harms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Record numbers of police officers are voluntarily resigning in England and Wales yet there is a lack of research which analyses why. Findings from an analysis of 62 interviews with police leavers who voluntarily resigned from the police service within England and Wales between January 2021 and June 2022 suggest that officers are leaving primarily due to perceptions of organizational injustice which focus upon: a lack of voice; concerns about promotion/progression; poor leadership; and a lack of organizational flexibility. This paper takes this latter reason—organizational flexibility—as its focus and through an inductive analysis of these leavers' voices, aims to both enrich the scarce qualitative academic literature on police workforce resignations and retention but also to offer significant evidence for future consideration of workforce optimization. The findings indicate that although sympathetic to operational policing complexities, participants were frustrated by organizational inflexibility. Three key areas were identified where the police service was perceived to be unsupportive or unreceptive—(a) dealing with additional needs, disabilities, or health issues of officers, (b) conflicts with non-work commitments, primarily those associated with childcare/parental responsibilities, and (c) supporting officers transitioning to part-time working. These structural barriers to effective workplace functioning were exacerbated by the cultural norms of overwork and 'fitting in' and were additionally particularly experienced by female resigners. The authors call for a challenge to the cultural barriers towards flexible working, the modelling of flexible working at all levels of the organization, and a focus on reciprocal flexibility between employer and employee. Until this issue can be tackled, it is argued that retention will continue to be an underestimated but significant site of inequality within policing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ethical challenges in deciding whether to vaccinate individuals lacking the decision-making capacity needed to provide informed consent during a public health emergency like COVID-19. The best interests standard ordinarily governs such decisions, which under the law in jurisdictions like England, Wales and Singapore takes into account the individual's past wishes and present preferences. However, in a public health emergency, the interests of third parties become more salient: those whom the unvaccinated individual might expose to infection have an interest in the individual's being vaccinated. While current mental capacity law has not been interpreted to take such public health considerations into account, we argue that such considerations are nevertheless ethically relevant, and can legitimately be weighed up alongside other considerations such as the preferences of the individual and impacts on their health. This is most relevant for individuals lacking decision-making capacity who have previously declined or presently resist vaccination. The public health impact of vaccination may in some instances be enough to outweigh preferences of the individual and justify providing vaccination against their past or present wishes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shares reflections on Police Now's experience working collaboratively with academic researchers to help embed evidence and support innovation in a police leadership development programme with police forces across England and Wales. To increase the likelihood of successful collaboration and the potential of research evidence achieving traction at all levels of policing, we focus on the importance of researchers and practitioners understanding the contextual pressures both groups are confronted with and the need to identify opportunities for two-way engagement and collaborative reflection, from research design through to the dissemination. Police Now's reflections and experience thus point to the value of participatory action research (PAR) approaches. The paper holds relevance for police and academics in how to foster successful research collaborations for the benefit of policing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

England and Wales is the only European jurisdiction to have experimented with electronic monitoring of offenders, or ‘tagging’. Three experimental schemes, ostensibly targeted on remand prisoners, were established late in 1989, intended to run for six months. On the available evidence they have not been a success. Yet the recent government White Paper Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public (Home Office 1990b) continues to promote the idea of ‘tagging’, suggesting that this work be undertaken by a private agency rather than the probation service which—unlike its equivalent in the USA—has dissociated itself from this new development. This paper aims only to map the contours of debate on electronic monitoring in England and Wales, in the context of moves to develop more coercive non-custodial measures generally, and to raise some examples of the moral and political issues to which tagging gives rise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper foregrounds corporeal co-presence in social work and provides a detailed discussion of the value of face-to-face practices. Informed by an inter-disciplinary body of literature, the paper argues that the concept of co-presence has much to offer the community of social work practitioners and academics in England and Wales as we strive to reconfigure professional practice beyond the VDU (virtual display unit). Moreover, discussion is of broader relevance given international debates about the need to ensure an effective balance between face-to-face and other forms of mediated communication, particularly where practice deals with highly sensitive matters. First, a body of literature from a range of academic disciplines is reviewed that illustrates how and why co-present activity continues to feature centrally in social life. Attention focuses on the rich contextual detail afforded by corporeal co-presence, which is difficult to restore through mediated proximities. Second, the relevance of this body of work for social work practice is detailed. Theoretical arguments are then illustrated through three case examples drawn from ethnographic work. In grounding theoretical propositions through illustrative examples, our intention is to render explicit knowledge that inheres in our being, but is often out of view. The paper recommends that social work needs to reclaim its interactional expertise and foreground embodied ways of knowing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For decades, criminologists have been aware of the severe consequences of the dark figure of police records for crime prevention strategies. Crime surveys are developed to address the limitations of police statistics as crime data sources, and estimates produced from surveys can mitigate biases in police data. This paper produces small area estimates of crimes unknown to the police at local and neighbourhood levels from the Crime Survey for England and Wales to explore the geographical inequality of the dark figure of crime. The dark figure of crime is larger not only in small cities that are deprived but also in wealthy municipalities. The dark figure is also larger in suburban, low-housing neighbourhoods with large concentrations of unqualified citizens, immigrants and non-Asian minorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use of part-time fostering as a means to support families with social care support needs. It is based on a qualitative case study of the support care service. Support care is a supportive intervention for families at risk of breakdown and long-term separation. The service attempts to forge positive relationships with parents and provides short breaks for children and young people. The service aims to be flexible and responsive to individual needs, but is time-limited, with typical intervention periods lasting between six and twelve months. Three support care schemes participated in the research and ten placements were followed for their duration. Eighty-two individual interviews were conducted and data were collected from twenty-two participant observation sessions. The aim of the research was to examine the 'doing' of support care. This included exploring stakeholder experiences, the aims and outcomes associated with the service, together with attempts to facilitate family change. The paper considers the advantages and contradictions inherent in this form of family support. Key aspects are related to broader considerations of family support services including the effectiveness of time-limited interventions and competing social work demands to support families as well as safeguard children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between the police and the news media is an integral part of how police forces communicate into the public sphere. Using, as a benchmark, Chibnall's influential account of English crime reporting, Law-and-Order News, and drawing on Habermas's concept of the public sphere, this paper examines the contemporary police–media relationship. It analyses the rise of police corporate communications against the apparent decline of specialist crime reporting drawing on interviews with crime reporters, police communications managers and a survey of police forces in England, Wales and Scotland. The paper concludes that ‘law-and-order news’ currently remains contested but the relationship is increasingly asymmetrical in favour of the police. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background and Objectives Arts activities can improve social connectedness and foster reciprocity between people living with dementia and their caregivers. The extent to which the arts can help shape attitudes towards dementia remains unclear. This paper explores the impact of a 12-week visual arts program "Dementia and Imagination" on the attitudes of family and professional caregivers through a mixed-methods longitudinal investigation, underpinned by a conceptual framework of the arts in dementia care. Research Design and Methods One hundred and forty-six family and professional caregivers were recruited across three settings in England and Wales (residential care homes, a county hospital, and community venues). Quantitative and qualitative data on caregivers' attitudes and perceptions of the impact of the arts program were collected through interviews at three time points. Results Thematic analysis identified four themes shared across the caregivers: (1) Recognizing capabilities , (2) Social connectedness , (3) Improvements to well-being , and (4) Equality and personhood. Two further themes were distinct to family caregivers: (5) Duration of the effects of the art program , and (6) Enriched perspective. The final theme Inspiring professional development was distinct to the professional caregivers. The quantitative analysis found no effect for caregivers' attitude change over time. Family caregivers scored significantly lower than professional caregivers at each of the three time points. Discussion and Implications Art programs have the potential to make visible the capabilities of the people living with dementia, enabling caregivers to see the person behind the condition. This study highlights practice implications for future implementation, such as the role of the arts in dementia care education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the Bichard Inquiry, this paper considers the vetting practices that apply in relation to those students with criminal convictions who apply to undertake social work education in England or Wales. The paper is organized primarily around the lessons that can be learnt from two case studies, and descriptions of how a range of social work programmes in England and Wales assess individuals with criminal convictions. It explores some of the reasons why the assessment of individuals with previous criminal convictions is important, some of the issues that might arise in relation to how it is currently carried out and what might constitute best practice in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a literature review undertaken for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in 2004 (Buchanan et al., 2004) on the impact of government policy in England and Wales for children aged from birth to thirteen at high risk of social exclusion as recorded up until May 2004. It describes the concept of 'social exclusion'; its meaning for children; the aims of government policy; the specific impact of government policy on vulnerable families and children in need (including children needing child protection and all 'looked after' children) as defined by the 1989 Children Act. The paper demonstrates that although progress has been made, there are still major areas of concern. The more discursive parts at the end of the paper reflect the views of the author and later thinking, and were not part of the original submission to the Social Exclusion Unit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings of a study identifying the experiences of gay and lesbian adopters and foster-carers in England and Wales. Qualitative interviews were conducted with twenty-four lesbians and gay men who had undertaken any part of the adoption or fostering application process since the implementation of the Adoption and Children Act of 2002. The study suggests that, whilst increasing numbers of lesbians and gay men are accessing fostering and adoption services, gender and sexuality are still problematic areas of contestation within this context. As a result, participants were required to present themselves to assessing professionals in distinct ways, in order to be recognised as 'legitimate' in their applications. Using the concept of 'displaying family', this paper illustrates the ways in which sexuality can complicate such displays, as they fall outside prevailing cultural and familial scripts. However, taking an intersectional perspective, this paper will also demonstrate that this was dependent upon the complex subjectivities of each participant. Finally, it will analyse what this means for the assessment of gay and lesbian adopters and foster-carers, and how social workers can respond to both individual identities and diverse family forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In England, the problem of excessive delay in court proceedings about children is longstanding, and there have been numerous initiatives over the years to tackle it. Under the 2014 Children and Families Act, there is now a statutory limit of twenty-six weeks for care proceedings (with provision for longer where justified). If this is to be achieved, the quality of the work that local authorities undertake with children and families before proceedings are started will be more important than ever, and the courts will have to take due account of it. This paper draws on research into the formal 'pre-proceedings process' in England and Wales, to assess the prospects for the new approach. The research was undertaken in 2010-12, and involved a file survey, observation of pre-proceedings meetings, interviews with key participants (including social workers, lawyers and parents) and a group discussion with judges. The paper considers the implications of the new approach for relationships between the courts and local authorities, in particular how pre-proceedings work should be conducted. The danger is that pre-court practice may become less about family support, more about evidence and timescales, less about prevention of proceedings, and more about preparation for court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The administration of ‘summary’ justice in the lower criminal courts in England and Wales is undergoing significant transformation. Broadly, this sits within the desire to create a modernized and more streamlined system. But, criminal justice scholars state ‘swift justice’ is not necessarily fair justice, and ‘procedural due process’ might be challenged by objectives of economics and speed. This paper centres on two areas of change—the expanded role of the police in prosecutorial decision making and the introduction of ‘virtual courts’ where accused defendants appear via video link from police stations to the criminal courts. It is argued these two alterations call into question fundamental principles of procedural due process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author discusses the need for integrated social services that cross organizational and professional boundaries, and the focus on risk assessment as present in this issue of "British Journal of Social Work." He notes that the government in England and Wales has had success in reducing child poverty, increasing employment rates, and improving tax credit levels.

Debates surrounding the ostensibly ‘transformative’ potential of personalisation for social work services, and service users, have variously illustrated the risks and opportunities this presents, although the implications for criminal justice social work services have received comparatively limited attention. By extending the concept of ‘service user’ to include not only offenders, but wider stakeholders (victims and communities), this paper considers the practical application of theories of personalisation and co-production by reviewing proposed and extant strategies for maximising stakeholder involvement in criminal justice services. It is argued that, in progressing beyond the more individualistic interpretations of this somewhat controversial reform agenda—in prioritising not only the individual, their rights, strengths and subjective identities, but locating the individual in situ, in the concrete realities and textures of their lives and communities—the strength of the personalisation agenda rests in its potential to develop and strengthen the collective organisation of service users, service providers and communities in a co-productive endeavour. It is argued that both this reading and the principles underpinning it resonate more widely with the empirical and theoretical literature on just and effective penal practices and, in so doing, this paper exposes the complexities that lie behind the apparent simplicity of this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports some of the findings from a study (Farmer et al., 2007), commissioned by an independent foster-care agency (IFA), to examine the support services offered to foster-carers and the young people in their care. In particular, this paper documents the use of a ‘team parenting’ approach within a ‘therapeutic’ fostering environment. Whilst there were some issues regarding the comprehensive assessments and the provision of therapy, foster-carers were positive about the support provided both to themselves and directly to the young people within the team parenting approach. On the other hand, communication and inter-agency working between the IFA and the local authority could be problematic, particularly in relation to funding decisions, which could limit the effectiveness of the team parenting approach. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Eyewitness identification evidence is highly influential for jurors and as such plays a crucial role in investigations. However, data reported in this paper suggest that potential witnesses have mistaken perceptions that identification parades in the UK are shown as live parades when in fact they are shown on videotape. This mistaken perception may prevent some people from going through with an identification procedure for fear of coming face to face with the perpetrator they witnessed. To ameliorate this potential situation this paper discusses the development and description of a multimedia witness care DVD which aims to inform witnesses about identification procedures in England and Wales. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines optimal price (i.e. ‘sliding scale’) regulation of a monopoly when productivity and managerial effort are not observed. We show generally how to operationalize this model of incentive regulation and use actual data from electricity distribution in England and Wales to estimate key parameters and make welfare comparisons of sliding scale regulation with a stylized price cap regime and the First-Best (the full information case). Our method enables us to quantify technical uncertainty as faced by the electricity regulator in the 1990s and shows that there are significant welfare gains from a sliding scale relative to the stylized price cap regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of immigration on social cohesion is a political issue, expressed as a fear that racially skewed residential patterns represent ghettos which prevent integration. Residential patterns have been measured by indices of segregation. The range of indices is reviewed in the paper and measured empirically for England and Wales by using census data for 1991 and 2001, including a new index of migration dispersal. There has been an increase in residential mixing as a result of growing minority populations and their more even spread across localities. These two trends are identified by two commonly used indices of segregation which are moving in opposite directions for the most recent immigrant groups. The sensitivity of each index to modifiable area boundaries makes them unsuitable for evaluation of cities’ relative performance. The residential patterns of cities after immigration are more clearly understood by using demographic measures of migration and age structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a reinterpretation of the model underpinning the Lee–Carter methodology for forecasting mortality (and other vital) rates. A parallel methodology based on generalized linear modelling is introduced. The use of residual plots is proposed for both methods to aid the assessment of the goodness of fit. The two methods are compared in terms of structure and assumptions. They are then compared through an analysis of the gender– and age–specific mortality rates for England and Wales over the period 1950–1998 and through a consideration of the forecasts generated by the two methods. The paper also compares different approaches to the forecasting of life expectancy and considers the effectiveness of the Coale–Guo method for extrapolating mortality rates to the oldest ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the findings of a national survey of the allocation and use of community constables among police forces in England and Wales. The methods used involved distributing a self-administered questionnaire to a sample of permanent beat officers and general duty officers in thirty-nine of the forty-three forces. The research found that the proportion of all uniform patrol officers allocated to beat duties varied widely among police force areas, ranging from over 50 per cent to fewer than 10 per cent. Community constables were less frequently female and more frequently aged over 30 years than general duty officers. Beat officers spent about 20 per cent of their working time withdrawn from beat duties to conduct other unrelated duties. Overall, beat officers were generally satisfied with their job and believed that community constable work was important. Forces in which beat officers reported that they were relatively less satisfied with their job tended to be those forces in which general duty officers also reported that they were relatively less satisfied with their job. The paper concludes by drawing attention to some of the features of the use of community constables which are of current concern and which might generate problems in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to examine the contribution of public inquiries to the reform of child care law and practice in England and Wales in the 1980s. Particular attention will be paid to the most recent inquiry, the Cleveland Report (Secretary of State, 1988). We wish to argue that a consensus has evolved on what must be done which is characterized by its reliance on what we call legalism. Evidence for this development is found both in the proposals for legal and administrative reform, and in concerns around social work practice. The reframing of child care issues around the pole of legalism is then located within the wider social and political context. Our conclusions are that 'legalization' may have significance in legitimating the social work profession and its role in child protection work, but that faith in legal intervention as offering a 'solution' to the problem of child abuse, is likely to be misplaced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2005, the UK Department of Health recommended that a new role, the arrhythmia care coordinator (ACC), be created to guide patients through the diagnosis and treatment for arrhythmia. The belief was that this would improve the efficiency of care and improve their quality of life. The British Heart Foundation provided funding for 32 such posts, all of which were filled by arrhythmia specialist nurses, and commissioned an evaluation of the new service to assess its impact on patients. Aims: This paper focuses on the impact of the ACCs on their patients’ levels of anxiety and depression, hospital readmissions and costs to the National Health Service (NHS). Methods: From 2008 to 2010, using questionnaires, we conducted a longitudinal audit of the psychological status of the patients referred to the ACCs; we also assessed the ACCs’ impact on readmissions and cost benefits to the NHS using UK Hospital Episode Statistics. Results: We found high levels of anxiety and depression amongst patients. Nearly one-third were at the ‘borderline’ or ‘clinically anxious’ and 18% were at the ‘borderline’ or ‘clinically depressed’ level at their first assessment with small changes at follow-up. In arrhythmia specialist nurse sites, readmission rates were reduced by half. After deducting the cost of the ACCs and their support, the estimated annual saving was £29,357 per ACC. Conclusion: This evaluation has shown that the NHS saves £29,357 per year over and above the costs of employing a British Heart Foundation ACC and that all arrhythmia centres should be encouraged to employ an appropriate number of such specialists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background There is an urgent need to address high levels of work-related violence (WRV) in Britain to improve the workplace experience of both employers and employees. Aims This study specifically explores prevalence rates of work-related violence assaults (WRVAs) for staff at high risk that have supervisor responsibilities and work full-time. Methods Five years of data were used for analysis from the Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW). Data were filtered for victims of crime from a working population in Britain. Results Forty-four per cent of respondents who are supervisors and have full-time jobs report that they had been victims of WRVAs. This figure is higher than other previous studies of WRV. Conclusions The current study provides further alternative evidence to support high prevalence rates of WRV by selecting for analysis specific work characteristics data that are strongly associated with WRV (supervisor responsibilities and full-time work). It is therefore recommended that future work explores different means of intervention for organizations to implement within the workplace to reduce WRV and protect workers from harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research studies and serious case reviews following child deaths often criticise social work practitioners for failing to maintain a focus on the child. This paper draws on findings from a qualitative study of child protection planning in cases of chronic child neglect to increase understanding as to why this is the case. Four key themes that appear to affect social work practice are explored. These are: generalised assessments prior to conference; a narrow interpretation of the identity of a child; superficial engagement by professionals with the wishes and feelings of the child throughout the planning process; a lack of awareness of the different needs of siblings in large families; and parenting interventions considered in a vacuum. The authors argue that part of the reason social workers have found child-centred practice in these cases difficult is a consequence of the way in which the neglected child appears to be constructed. They conclude by considering how the latest English government guidance Working Together at one level exacerbates the issue whilst also providing opportun ities for innovative practice designed to focus on the daily lived experience of the child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The maltreatment experiences and needs of young people (aged eleven to seventeen) are often very different from those of younger children. As children get older, they become increasingly vulnerable to a broader range of risks. In comparison to younger children, young people are more likely to experience maltreatment outside the home and are more likely to become involved in a range of risk-taking behaviours, which may make them more vulnerable. Additionally, it can be more challenging for social workers to engage young people and their parents in the child protection process. This article draws on the findings of a two-and-a-half-year study that examined the process of referral of young people to Children's Social Care Services in England and initial responses once young people have been referred. Through qualitative interviews with social workers, the paper considers front line social work responses to young people across four local authority areas. The findings highlight the broad and complex range of issues that young people present and document the variation in local responses to this age group. The research highlights the need for a review of the responses that are being used and consideration of which approach works best for young people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the methodological approaches and challenges associated with tracing and contacting former social welfare service users in the course of long-term outcome research. Historical case file data were analysed on 117 ‘hard to reach’ children and young people identified as having behavioural problems, including sexual behavioural problems. Various publicly available internet and social network resources were used to try and trace these individuals in adulthood, at least a decade after the identification of their behaviour problems in childhood. Using these approaches, it was possible to locate individuals in 69 per cent of cases. The use of social network sites, such as Facebook, in social research is discussed, together with an appraisal of the practicalities and ethics of such approaches. The implications for social work practice more generally of the emergence of new technologies for tracing and maintaining contact with service users are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses various issues surrounding decision delivered by the Appeal Court of England and Wales in the EWCA Crim 2439 court case. It highlights that the court questioned the evidences presented in the case through concluding various results by the forensic scientists, and statisticians. The judicial administration raises various issues against usage of likelihood-ratios and bayesian methods for interpretation of results.

This paper extends Tyler's procedural justice model of public compliance with the law. Analysing data from a national probability sample of adults in England and Wales, we present a new conceptualization of legitimacy based on not just the recognition of power, but also the justification of power. We find that people accept the police's right to dictate appropriate behaviour not only when they feel a duty to obey officers, but also when they believe that the institution acts according to a shared moral purpose with citizens. Highlighting a number of different routes by which institutions can influence citizen behaviour, our broader normative model provides a better framework far explaining why people are willing to comply with the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention of this paper is to contribute to the international debate on penal policy transfer by describing the development of a probation service in Romania following the policy transfer schema developed by Dolowitz and Marsh (1996). Both authors of this article played a role in the establishment of probation in Romania and this article provides an ‘inside story’. Our conclusion is that both the debate and practices of policy transfer have been too simplistic to capture the dynamic and complex nature of international policy transfer and, indeed, that the notion of policy transfer itself is ill conceived. We demonstrate how partnership, when applied to international penal policy and practice developments, provides a potentially useful model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, older lesbians and gay men were largely invisible within ageing research and, where it has been undertaken, a bias towards urban samples has occurred. As a result, less is known about the experience of living in a rural community as an older lesbian or gay man. This paper presents a discussion of a current research project that is taking place as one part a programme of research in the south-west of England and Wales under the umbrella of the UK's New Dynamics of Ageing Programme. The research projects in the south-west and Wales are broadly aimed at exploring how older people living in rural areas interact with their local communities. The Gay and Pleasant Land? project is focused on exploring sexuality, ageing and rurality in the south-west of England and Wales. The project uses multi-methods to explore connections between place, space and identity, which include visual ethnography, focus groups and interviews using the Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM). The development and production of a short, professionally made film as the key dissemination tool are outlined. Performative Social Science and its philosophical grounding in Relational Aesthetics as the bedrock of the project are deliberated. Implications for research with marginalised groups in rural communities are discussed, alongside a consideration of multi-methods and the use of tools from the within social work research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Summary. In many countries, a key component of measuring census coverage is a post-enumeration survey. In the 2001 censuses of the UK this was called the Census Coverage Survey. The paper reviews the design of the 2001 Census Coverage Survey and develops the design for the survey in 2011, taking advantage of the experience of 2001 and the data that were generated by the 2001 process. This leads to a proposed design that is less clustered than in 2001 and has an allocation that is more skewed towards areas where coverage in the 2011 census is expected to be lowest. The updated design balances optimal allocation against maintaining a sufficient sample across all areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary welfare is closely linked to policies designed to foster individual responsibility and self-development. This agenda, however, encounters problems when adults lack the capacity to make decisions about their lives, and/or are unable to protect themselves from the malign actions of their fellow citizens. These problems are addressed by the 2005 Mental Capacity Act (England and Wales) and adult safeguarding procedures. Specifically, the 2005 Mental Capacity Act (England and Wales) (MCA) introduced a statutory advocacy service, which empowers local authorities to appoint an Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA) to represent the interests of adult lacking capacity to make decisions about adult safeguarding procedures. This paper presents (i) a general overview of the development of adult safeguarding and the introduction of the MCA's IMCA service into these procedures; (ii) findings from a research project investigating the integration of IMCAs into these procedures; and (iii) a discussion of the challenges facing IMCAs involved in adult safeguarding procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper we look at the connection between police resources and crime by focussing on a large-scale policy intervention-the Street Crime Initiative-that was introduced in England and Wales in 2002. This allocated additional resources to some police force areas to specifically target street crime, whereas other forces did not receive any additional funding. Estimates derived from several empirical strategies show that robberies fell significantly in SCI police forces relative to non-SCI forces after the initiative was introduced. Moreover, the policy seems to have been a cost effective one, even after extensively testing for possible displacement or diffusion effects onto other crimes and into adjacent areas. Overall, we reach the conclusion that increased police resources can be used to generate falls in crime, at least in the context of the SCI program we study. (JEL: H00, H5, K42) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the effects of recent political and economic trends on the construction of forensic science in England and Wales. Using documentary sources and fieldwork, I show how neo-liberal initiatives have differentially reconstructed relationships between forensic scientists and the police. I argue that this stems from contested interpretations of scientific integration that have selectively appropriated elements of neo-liberalism. Neo-liberal reform of forensic science has, however, exposed actors to new risks, culminating in the UK Government's announcement to close the Forensic Science Service. Yet, rather than representing the end of ‘marketization’, debates concerning the organization of forensic science have entered a new phase. These hold significant implications for understanding the relationship between crime, science and advanced liberal governance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores ‘child abuse-related deaths’ (CARD) and possible CARD rates of children aged from birth to fourteen years over the period 1974–2006. It uses the latest available WHO mortality data to compare England and Wales outcomes with the other major developed countries (MDC), to see how much progress has been made in reducing actual and possible CARD in England and Wales and the other MDC. The results tell a relative ‘success story’ for England and Wales, whose violent CARD rates of children have never been lower since records began and who have made significantly greater progress in reducing violent possible CARD than the majority of the other MDC. Moreover, England and Wales were only one of four MDC whose CARD deaths, primarily the responsibility of the children protection services (CPS), fell significantly more that ‘All Causes of Death’, the primary responsibility of medicine. Though there is an overlap of services, the greater improvement in the CPS-related deaths than those primarily related to child health reflect well on the CPS. This should help to offset something of the media stereotypes and be a boost for the morale of front line staff of the CPS and the families whom they serve. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is an electronic system for assessing children and sharing information between child welfare professionals, which is at various stages of pilot and implementation in England and Wales. Research by the authors in England (Peckover et al., 2008a, 2008b; White et al., 2008) and in Wales (Pithouse et al., 2004; Pithouse, 2006) informs this paper in order to compare CAF as implicating a number of policy 'goods', with CAF as a set of worker and organizational accomplishments. Our interest here is that in the course of implementation, policy aims have become submerged in day-to-day practice and that, analytically, there are differences between the 'CAF of policy' and the 'CAF of practice'; in brief, there are, conceptually, two CAFs, the formal construct of policy and the applied CAF as constructed by multiple organizations across Wales and England, wherein there is no singular model. Indeed, we demonstrate that there are all manner of common assessment designs operating in the world of practice. Rather than rehearsing our research findings (the above sources offer an abundance), we use this opportunity to develop and synthesize our arguments about key assumptions and conceptual properties that underpin the CAF of policy and practice and which may have wider provenance in respect of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in child welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we draw on our experience as evaluators of three restorative justice schemes in England and Wales which were funded under the auspices of the Home Office's 'Grime Reduction Programme' to reflect upon the theoretical and empirical potential of restorative justice (in particular, conferencing) to bring about reductions in reoffending on the part of participating offenders. We propose that there is a case to be made for a subtle shift in ways of thinking about the recidivism reduction potential of restorative justice: that is, as an opportunity to facilitate a desire, or consolidate a decision, to desist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to reduce the level of youth offending in England and Wales, the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Youth Justice Board have emphasized the importance of multi-agency work. Recent years have witnessed the introduction of `robust' community interventions for young offenders, including the Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme (ISSP). This paper assesses the involvement of the police in ISSP, as well as the wider contribution of police officers to youth offending teams (YOTs). Whilst the study identified ‘good practice’ in relation to intelligence-led policing and joined-up youth justice intervention, there was some variability amongst ISSP schemes and YOTs. In some contrast to the findings of Burnett and Appleton (2004), the specific contribution of police officers to youth justice work was regarded by civilian practitioners and police officers themselves as unique and specialized. Following de Lint (2003), it was found that the police are key in terms of ‘brokering access’ to young offenders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pawson, M. G., Kupschus, S., and Pickett, G. D. 2007. The status of sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) stocks around England and Wales, derived using a separable catch-at-age model, and implications for fisheries management. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 64: 346–356. The commercial fishery for sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) around the coasts of England and Wales developed rapidly in the late 1970s and 1980s and, by 1986, involved some 3000 fishers using more than 2000 boats to make landings worth £3–4 million. The estimated annual catch of sea bass by sport-anglers was similar to the level recorded from the commercial fishery. Sampling of landings showed strong evidence of growth-overfishing in many areas, and a package of technical measures was introduced in 1990 aimed at improving the exploitation pattern and yield per recruit. This paper describes how data collected through a fishery and biological sampling programme around England and Wales over the period 1985–2004 have been utilized in a separable catch numbers-at-age model to assess the dynamics of sea bass stocks in English and Welsh coastal waters. The model output shows that recruitment improved during the 1990s and that moderate levels of fishing mortality allied to an exploitation pattern that largely avoids juvenile fish have enabled the bass population and its fishery to develop sustainably. Results are discussed in relation to model development and management of the bass fishery. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers the extent to which the Government's declared intentions to unite youth justice practice cultures around a common emphasis on preventing offending through early criminal justice intervention have been realized in practice. Based on interviews with a range of practitioners in Wales in 2003/04, it examines their priorities and underlying objectives. It outlines a complex pattern of change in which concern for the welfare of young offenders has been not so much marginalized as reconstituted in more conditional terms. The article questions whether this complexity can be adequately captured by suggestions of a 'punitive turn' in youth justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the findings of a survey into minority language policy and provision in social service departments and large voluntary social service agencies in England and Wales. It found that many organizations lacked specific policies on the provision of services to minority language communities and that most were poorly prepared to meet their needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1989 Children Act in England and Wales and the derivative 1995 Children (Nl) Order in Northern Ireland provide the legislative framework within which issues pertaining to the care and supervision of children that come before the Courts are examined. Both pieces of legislation were intended to address a number of problems with the way that such issues were dealt with by the Court, particularly the tendency for proceedings to become protracted and for children to 'drift' in care as a consequence. The imposition of the 'No Delay' principle in both jurisdictions was designed specifically to address these concerns. However, since the introduction of both the 1989 Children Act (implemented in October 1991) and the 1995 Children (Nl) Order (implemented in November 1996), there has been a steady increase in the average duration of proceedings and concerns remain about the impact that this may be having upon the children involved. This paper presents the findings of a research study (McSherry et al., 2004) that explored the complex relationship between the duration of care proceedings and costs to children in terms of the likelihood of achieving permanency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]