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UK Government (uk + government)
Selected AbstractsThe UK climate change levy: good intentions but potentially damaging to businessCORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2004Ann Hansford The climate change levy (CCL) is an important part of the UK Government's response to being a signatory to the Kyoto agreement. Prior to the introduction of the levy there were sharply contrasting views, which ranged from Sir Robert May's view that it was ,an opportunity, not a threat' to the CBI's view that it should be an option of last resort. In order to consider the impact of the CCL on UK businesses, interviews were undertaken within one ,not for profit' and two commercial organizations to explore reactions to its introduction. The findings from the study suggest the primary foci of concerns are based upon increases to the cost base and threats to international competitiveness. Further, there is doubt that the ambitious targets signed up to by the UK Government are likely to be achieved, unless there are fundamental changes in support for businesses, or the targets are revised. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] Help-seeking behaviour in patients with lymphomaEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CANCER CARE, Issue 4 2008D.A. HOWELL Reducing cancer mortality is a priority for the UK Government and emphasis has been placed on introducing targets to ensure prompt diagnosis. Help seeking is the first step on the pathway to diagnosis and should occur promptly; however, patients with lymphoma take longer to seek help for symptoms than those with many other cancers. Despite this, the help seeking behaviour of these patients has not been investigated. This qualitative study examined the beliefs and actions about help seeking among 32 patients, aged 65 and over and newly diagnosed with lymphoma in West Yorkshire during 2000. Patients reported an extremely wide range of symptoms which were not always interpreted as serious or potentially caused by cancer. This, in association with a clear lack of knowledge about lymphoma, often led to help seeking being deferred. The range and characteristics of symptoms can largely be explained in terms of variations in the type, site and size of the lymphoma. The UK Government targets focus on the time after help seeking, yet for lymphoma it is also crucial to reduce the time taken to seek help. More education about the potential symptoms of this disease is needed among the general public. [source] UK Government announces first major relaxation in the alcohol licensing laws for nearly a century: drinking in the UK goes 24,7ADDICTION, Issue 7 2000D. Colin Drummond First page of article [source] Nitrogen: the essential public enemyJOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY, Issue 5 2003Howard Dalton Summary 1Increased demand for food and energy is leading to changes in the global nitrogen cycle. These changes are resulting in increasing levels of nitrogen in the environment in its pollutant forms with consequences for both biodiversity and human health. In this paper, we discuss the impacts in the UK and give examples of the steps that are being taken by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to tackle these problems. 2Over 70% of the UK land area is farmland. The farmed environment is composed of a wide range of semi-natural habitats including heather moorland, chalk downland, wet grasslands farm woodlands and hedgerows. As a result, much of the UK's cherished biodiversity is an integral part of agriculture and therefore vulnerable to changes in farming practices. 3Defra's overall goal is to build a sustainable future for the UK. With regard to nitrogen pollution, this involves finding ways of continuing to meet our food and energy requirements whilst causing little or no harm to the environment. 4Defra's science programme has a central role to play in the development of its nitrogen pollution policies. These pollution policies provide a key input to the Department's evidence base for policy formulation, and support international negotiations on pollution targets. 5The Department's science programme has addressed the major components of the nitrogen cycle associated with harmful impacts on the environment and human health. The main aims have been the understanding and quantification of impacts through monitoring and modelling and the development of abatement measures. 6Synthesis and application. It is becoming increasingly apparent that whilst advances can and have been made in the reduction of emissions from combustion processes, the problem of nitrogen pollution from agriculture is far more intractable. This scientific challenge, when taken together with emerging regulatory initiatives, will require imaginative solutions if the UK Government is to forge a sustainable way forward1, 2. [source] Policy options for alcohol price regulation: the importance of modelling population heterogeneityADDICTION, Issue 3 2010Petra Sylvia Meier ABSTRACT Context and aims Internationally, the repertoire of alcohol pricing policies has expanded to include targeted taxation, inflation-linked taxation, taxation based on alcohol-by-volume (ABV), minimum pricing policies (general or targeted), bans of below-cost selling and restricting price-based promotions. Policy makers clearly need to consider how options compare in reducing harms at the population level, but are also required to demonstrate proportionality of their actions, which necessitates a detailed understanding of policy effects on different population subgroups. This paper presents selected findings from a policy appraisal for the UK government and discusses the importance of accounting for population heterogeneity in such analyses. Method We have built a causal, deterministic, epidemiological model which takes account of differential preferences by population subgroups defined by age, gender and level of drinking (moderate, hazardous, harmful). We consider purchasing preferences in terms of the types and volumes of alcoholic beverages, prices paid and the balance between bars, clubs and restaurants as opposed to supermarkets and off-licenses. Results Age, sex and level of drinking fundamentally affect beverage preferences, drinking location, prices paid, price sensitivity and tendency to substitute for other beverage types. Pricing policies vary in their impact on different product types, price points and venues, thus having distinctly different effects on subgroups. Because population subgroups also have substantially different risk profiles for harms, policies are differentially effective in reducing health, crime, work-place absence and unemployment harms. Conclusion Policy appraisals must account for population heterogeneity and complexity if resulting interventions are to be well considered, proportionate, effective and cost-effective. [source] A national strategy for smoking cessation treatment in EnglandADDICTION, Issue 2005Ann McNeill ABSTRACT In 1998 the UK government published a White Paper on tobacco which set out the development of smoking cessation treatment services across England. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the events leading up to the inclusion of smoking cessation treatment services within the White Paper, and the background to the evaluation of those services, the results of which are the subject of the remaining papers in this supplement. [source] Referral pathways and diagnosis: UK government actions fail to recognize complexity of lymphomaEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CANCER CARE, Issue 6 2007D.A. HOWELL rgn Referral pathways and diagnosis: UK government actions fail to recognise complexity of lymphoma To gain survival advantages potentially associated with prompt diagnosis, the UK government introduced identical waiting-time targets for all cancers, and guidelines to ensure that general practitioners make appropriate hospital referrals. For lymphoma, the evidence guiding these actions is limited. This study examined referral pathways in patients with lymphoma and variations in time to diagnosis by discipline of first referral. A case series study was conducted including all patients aged over 25 years, newly diagnosed with lymphoma in the UK county of West Yorkshire, during 2000. Data were extracted from primary care and hospital records of 189 patients. Referral pathways were described, and the number of days between first referral and diagnosis calculated. A distinct referral pathway did not exist; patients were initially referred to many disciplines. Surgical referrals predominated, and only 12% of patients were sent directly to haematology. Time to diagnosis varied by discipline and was shorter for patients sent to haematology than for most other common disciplines. UK government actions to ensure the prompt diagnosis of patients with lymphoma are not evidence-based. The complexity of the referral pathway in patients with lymphoma, which affects time to diagnosis, has been underestimated. Further government actions should be evidence-based, ensuring prompt diagnosis of lymphoma from whatever discipline patients originate. [source] Bird densities are associated with household densitiesGLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY, Issue 8 2007JAMIE TRATALOS Abstract Increasing housing density is an important component of global land transformation, with major impacts on patterns of biodiversity. However, while there have been many studies of the changes in biodiversity across rural,urban gradients, which are influenced in large part by housing densities, how biodiversity changes across the full range of regional variation in housing density remains poorly understood. Here, we explore these relationships for the richness and abundance of breeding birds across Britain. Total richness, and that of 27 urban indicator species, increased from low to moderate household densities and then declined at greater household densities. The richness of all species increased initially faster with household density than did that of the urban indicator species, but nonurban indicator species richness declined consistently after peaking at a very low housing density. Avian abundance showed a rather different pattern. Total abundance and that summed across all urban indicator species increased over a wide range of household densities, and declined only at the highest household densities. The abundance of individual urban indicator species generally exhibited a hump-shaped relationship with housing density. While there was marked intraspecific variation in the form of such relationships, almost invariably avian abundance declined at housing densities below that at which the UK government requires new developments to be built. Our data highlight the difficulties of maintaining biodiversity while minimising land take for new development. High-density housing developments are associated with declines in many of those species otherwise best able to exploit urban environments, and those components of native biodiversity with which human populations are often most familiar. [source] Critically classifying: UK e-government website benchmarking and the recasting of the citizen as customerINFORMATION SYSTEMS JOURNAL, Issue 2 2009Benjamin Mosse Abstract In recent years, discussion of the provision of government services has paid particular attention to notions of customer choice and improved service delivery. However, there appears to be marked shift in the relationship between the citizen and the state moving from government being responsive to the needs of citizens to viewing citizens explicitly as customers. This paper argues that this change is being accelerated by government use of techniques like benchmarking, which have been widely used in the private sector. To illustrate this point, the paper focuses on the adoption of website benchmarking techniques by the public sector. The paper argues that the essence of these benchmarking technologies, a process comprised of both finding and producing truth, is fundamentally based on the act of classifying and draws on Martin Heidegger's etymological enquiry to reinterpret classification as a dynamic movement towards order that both creates and obfuscates truth. In so doing, it demonstrates how Heidegger's seminal ideas can be adapted for critical social research by showing that technology is more than an instrument as it has epistemic implications for what counts as truth. This stance is used as the basis for understanding empirical work reporting on a UK government website benchmarking project. Our analysis identifies the means involved in producing the classifications inherent in such benchmarking projects and relates these to the more general move that is recasting the relationship between the citizen and the state, and increasingly blurring the boundaries between the state and the private sector. Recent developments in other attempts by the UK government to use private-sector technologies and approaches indicate ways in which this move might be challenged. [source] Sunlight robbery: A critique of public health policy on vitamin D in the UKMOLECULAR NUTRITION & FOOD RESEARCH (FORMERLY NAHRUNG/FOOD), Issue 8 2010Oliver GillieArticle first published online: 28 JUN 2010 Abstract The British Isles have a very cloudy climate and as a result receive fewer hours of clear sunlight than most other industrial regions. The majority of people in these islands have low blood levels of vitamin D [25(OH)D] all year round. Few food products are fortified with vitamin D in the UK and the government does not recommend any vitamin D supplement for most adults in the UK. Diseases associated with vitamin D insufficiency such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes (types 1 and 2) and multiple sclerosis are more frequent in the UK, and particularly in Scotland, than in many other European countries and some, such as multiple sclerosis and diabetes (types 1 and 2), are increasing in incidence. Present knowledge suggests that the risk of some chronic diseases could be reduced if vitamin D intake or sun exposure of the population were increased. Yet policy and public health recommendations of the UK government and its agencies (e.g. the Health Protection Agency, the Food Standards Agency) and of Cancer Research UK have failed to take full account of established and putative benefits of vitamin D and/or sunshine. The epidemic of chronic disease in the UK, which is associated with and caused at least in part by vitamin D insufficiency, has not been adequately recognized by these agencies, and too often measures taken by them have been misguided, inappropriate or ineffective. [source] Critical Discourse Analysis in Political Studies: An Illustrative Analysis of the ,Empowerment' AgendaPOLITICS, Issue 2 2010Michael Farrelly In the first sections of this article I give a simple and general account of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and how it might contribute to the theoretical and methodological repertoire of political studies through its discourse-dialectical theory of how discourse figures as an aspect of social practices without reducing those practices to discourse. In the final section I give a short illustrative example of how a CDA approach to detailed textual analysis might also be applied to specific texts (or groups of texts) in the political arena: in the example I take the press release in which the national UK government heralded its recent ,empowerment' White Paper, ,Communities in Control'. [source] Regulation of Government: Has it Increased, is it Increasing, Should it be Diminished?PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 2 2000Christopher Hood This article examines arms-length ,regulation' of UK government , the public-sector analogy to regulation of business firms , and assesses the precepts for public-sector regulation embodied in the Blair Labour government's official vision of public-man-agement reform, its Modernising Government White Paper of 1999. As a background to assessing the recipes for public-sector regulation in Modernising Government, the article shows that such regulation grew markedly both in the two decades up to 1997 and in the plans and activities of the Blair government from 1997 to 1999. Against that background, the design principles for public-sector regulation contained in Modernising Government are assessed. The White Paper was notable for embracing a doctrine of ,enforced self-regulation' for the public sector that involved aspirations to both more and less public-sector regulation in the future. It put its faith in a mixture of oversight and mutuality for ,regulating regulation'. But in spite of the radical-sounding tone of Modernising Government, the measures proposed appeared limited and half-hearted, and two well-known institutional design principles for regulation seemed to be missing altogether from the Blair government's view of administrative ,modernity'. [source] INDEPENDENCE DAY FOR THE ,OLD LADY': A NATURAL EXPERIMENT ON THE IMPLICATIONS OF CENTRAL BANK INDEPENDENCE,THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 3 2007JAGJIT S. CHADHA Central bank independence is widely thought be a sine qua non of a credible commitment to price stability. The surprise decision by the UK government to grant operational independence to the Bank of England in 1997 affords us a natural experiment with which to gauge the impact on the yield curve from the adoption of central bank independence. We document the extent to which the decision to grant independence was ,news' and illustrate that the reduction in medium- and long-term nominal interest rates was some 50 basis points, which we show to be consistent with a sharp increase in policy-maker's aversion to inflation deviations from target. We therefore suggest that central bank independence represents one of the clearest signals available to elected politicians about their preferences on the control of inflation. [source] Robert McNamara and the limits of ,bean counting' (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 3 2010Keir Martin The recent death of Robert McNamara provides an opportunity to reflect on the shortcomings of the strategy of numerical rationality in management that defined his career. In both of the major projects in which he took a leading role, as President of the Ford Motor Company and US Defense Secretary during the Vietnam War, his strategy has retrospectively been held up as a model of development to avoid. In particular, management studies now champions the importance of ,culture' in running complex organizations. Ironically, the UK government increasingly seeks to run public services, including higher education, according to a McNamarite model in a bid to be more business-friendly, despite the evidence that many involved in private sector management have been moving away from this model for a quarter of a century. [source] Renewing the War on prostitution: The spectres of ,trafficking' and ,slavery'ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 3 2009Sophie Day The 1990s saw government initiatives restricting immigration in many countries, and a good deal of popular unease. Associated policies have targeted sex workers, as with the Policing and Crime Bill that is currently in its Third Reading in the House of Commons (UK). In the name of ,victims' of a trade organised by ,evil' traffickers, this Bill seeks further sanctions against all of those involved. This editorial asks whether initiatives during the current recession might not seem to succeed but for the wrong reasons. Immigrants are already leaving the UK in search of a living while local workers, who were promised safer working conditions in the wake of the murder of five women in Ipswich (2006), will be punished more and more. With its apparently humanitarian efforts to ,stop the traffic', the UK government will turn out to have replaced our ,slaves' from abroad with home-grown substitutes, and effectively solidified and further excluded an underclass. This situation suggests striking parallels with the panic over white slavery during the last comparable period of globalisation culminating in the First World War. [source] Review of UK space industryASTRONOMY & GEOPHYSICS, Issue 4 2009Article first published online: 20 JUL 200 An expert group has been charged by the UK government to assess future challenges and opportunities for the UK space industries, and to formulate a 20-year strategy for British leadership in space. [source] British Muslims and the UK government's ,war on terror' within: evidence of a clash of civilizations or emergent de-civilizing processes?THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2010Stephen Vertigans Abstract In the immediate aftermath of the September 2001 attacks on America, defending civilization was quickly established at the core of the ,war on terror'. Unintentionally or otherwise this incorporation of civilization connected with Samuel Huntington's ,Clash of Civilizations' thesis. Within the ,war on terror' the dark side of counterterrorism has become apparent through international practices like extrajudicial killing, extraordinary rendition and torture. The impact of Western governments' policies upon their indigenous Muslim populations has also been problematic but social and political analysis has been relatively limited. This paper seeks to help address the scarcity of sociological contributions. Hidden costs of the UK government's attempts to utilize violence and enhance social constraints within the nation-state are identified. It is argued that although counterterrorism strategies are contributing to a self-fulfilling spiral of hatred that could be considered evidence in support of the ,Clash of Civilizations', the thesis is unhelpful when trying to grasp the underlying processes. Instead the paper draws upon Norbert Elias's application of the concepts of ,civilizing' and ,de-civilizing' to help improve levels of understanding about the processes and consequences of particular Muslim communities being targeted by security forces. The paper concludes with an exploration of the majority of the population's acquiescence and willingness to accept restraints upon Muslims in order to safeguard their own security. [source] The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction: The Significance of the Creative IndustriesINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ART & DESIGN EDUCATION, Issue 2 2001Mark Blythe This paper reflects on the social and political significance of the new classification of the ,creative industries'. The new aggregate expands previous classifications of the arts and cultural industries and produces figures which suggest that these sectors are increasingly vital elements of the UK economy. It is argued that these statistics on the creative industries are, to an extent, misleading. The paper considers some of the implications of the recent and continuing advances in technologies of digital reproduction and distribution. The importance of the creative industries to Arts and Design education is placed within the context of the emphasis on vocationalism by successive UK governments. It is suggested that while the new aggregate may be useful in terms of certain kinds of promotion, the category should be recognised as arbitrary and politically motivated. Finally, the paper examines the notion that the creative industries might be harnessed to achieve social inclusion and urban re-generation and reflects on some of the social costs of such sectors. [source] The search for uranium in ,nuclear-free' New Zealand: Prospecting on the West Coast, 1940s to 1970sNEW ZEALAND GEOGRAPHER, Issue 2 2006Rebecca PriestleyArticle first published online: 26 JUL 200 Abstract:, In a government search for uranium in 1944,1946, uneconomic deposits of radioactive minerals were found concentrated in dredge tailings on the West Coast. In 1954 a new search was initiated, leading to the 1955 discovery of uranium in the Buller Gorge. In the 25-year investigation programme that followed, prospectors were assisted by staff from the Mines Department and the Geological Survey and were funded by grants from the New Zealand and UK governments. The prospecting continued unchallenged by the media or peace or environmental movements until 1979 when it ended for economic rather than philosophical reasons. [source] PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REFORM IN THE UK AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSISPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 1 2007STEPHEN ACKROYD It is often assumed in the literature on public management reforms that radical changes in values, work and organization have occurred or are under way. In this paper our aim is to raise questions about this account. Focusing on three services in the UK, each dominated by organized professions , health care, housing, and social services , significant variations in the effectiveness of reforms are noted. The available research also suggests that these outcomes have been inversely proportional to the efforts expended on introducing new management practices. The most radical changes have been in housing, where, paradoxically, successive UK governments focused least attention. By contrast, in health and social services, management restructuring has been less effective, despite the greater resources devoted to it. This variation is attributed to professional values and institutions, against which reforms were directed, and the extent to which different groups became locked either into strategies of resistance or accommodation. [source] SOCIAL CAPITAL & FAITH-BASED ORGANISATIONSTHE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 6 2007CHRISTINE HEPWORTH This year is the twentieth anniversary of the germinal report ,Faith in the City' which first drew attention to the concerns of religious agencies whose remit is to tackle growing multiple deprivation in the UK. Since then, the role of faith-based organisations (FBOs) as mediators of welfare provision, urban regeneration and community development has attracted little attention from sociologists despite claims that such roles are becoming increasingly important. Successive UK governments have highlighted the potential of religious congregations in enhancing social capital and promoting social cohesion. The seminal work of Greg Smith (University of East London) emphasises this theme while other sociological literature in this area (mainly American, e.g., Putnam) argues that FBOs in the community provide a degree of social support and relationship structures that accumulate as social capital resources. This discussion paper is an attempt to open up the debate on the ways in which FBOs can develop and enhance the social capital value of local community groups. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||