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We use newly linked tax records to show that the large responses of UK company owner-managers to personal taxes are due to intertemporal income shifting and not to reductions in real business activity. Around half of this shifting is short-term and helps prevent volatile incomes being taxed more heavily under progressive personal taxes. The remainder reflects systemic profit retention over long periods to take advantage of lower tax rates, including preferential treatment of capital gains. We find no evidence that this tax-induced retention increases business investment. It does, however, substantially reduce the tax revenue raised from high income business owners.

Women form a minority (4.8%) in the UK prison system, which is predominantly designed for men. A high number of women prisoners bring experiences of trauma and abuse with them into the system. The incidence of mental health problems is inordinately high compared to the general population. Whilst an increasing number of UK music therapists work in forensic psychiatry, providing treatment for mental disordered offenders, there is a dearth of music therapists working in UK prisons. There is correspondingly little research into music therapy and women prisoners. The current article presents the qualitative results of a mixed-methods doctoral study carried out by Dr Helen Leith (2014). Using qualitative data, the study investigates whether there is a change in the self-perception of women prisoners attending music therapy and whether, if this is the case, they show an improved ability to engage with prison resettlement interventions. Findings for 10 participants indicated that women prisoners attending music therapy experience a change in self-perception and engagement in music therapy translated into behavioural change outside the music therapy room. Through adaptive interpretative phenomenological analysis of semi-structured interviews, themes indicated that participants showed an increase in self-confidence, self-esteem, self-efficacy, achievement motivation and a number of other areas relevant to successful resettlement. There was a reduction in the number of self-harm or behavioural incidences and attendance of other programmes improved. For severely disaffected prisoners, music therapy provided an appealing and motivating intervention, which served as an entry point to other programmes required for resettlement. Women prisoners not only showed an enhanced ability to attend the programmes required for their successful resettlement; music therapy created aspirations, which is of significance to downstream outcomes.

Together in Sound is a partnership project between the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and Saffron Hall Trust, an arts charity based in rural Essex, England. Established in Autumn 2017, the project offers music therapy to people living with dementia and their companions and includes a practice-based research element. This co-authored report concerns the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on the project and presents the team’s experience of moving music therapy sessions online in March 2020. Continuing online provided continuity, support, and ongoing connection for participants who, because of the national lockdown in the United Kingdom, were isolated in their own homes. After providing some context about the project, the report explores the challenges and benefits of online delivery of sessions with reflections from the Together in Sound team including potential implications for the future.