The Experience and Practice of Approved Social Workers in Northern Ireland

Correspondence to Dr Roger Manktelow, School of Social and Community Sciences, University of Ulster Magee College, Derry, BT48 7JL, Northern Ireland. Summary This article reports on the first extensive survey of ApprovedSocial Worker (ASW) activity under the Mental Health (NorthernIreland) Order 1986. The integrated health and social servicesorganizational structure, the adverse effects on individualmental health of the legacy of thirty years of civil conflictand the move from hospital to community care are significantfeatures which have influenced the delivery of mental healthsocial work services locally. The practice and experience ofASWs was surveyed by postal questionnaire and user and carerexperience of compulsory hospital admission was investigatedby a series of focus groups. The study revealed that two-thirdsof ASWs had experience of acting as an applicant in compulsoryhospital admission during the past two years. Nearly half (42per cent) of these ASWs had reported experience of between oneand five admissions and one-tenth had completed over twentyadmissions in the two-year period. In only a small minorityof cases did joint face-to-face assessment with the GeneralPractitioner (doctor) take place; nearly half of ASWs reporteddifficulties in obtaining transport; and only one-fifth of ASWshad experience of acting as a second approved social worker.Half of ASWs reported experience of guardianship, either asapplicant or in making the recommendation. Both service usersand carers reported a lack of understanding about the role ofthe ASW and complained about the lack of alternative resourcesthat ASWs could use to prevent hospital admissions. These findingsare discussed and a number of recommendations are proposed forimprovements to approved social worker practice.     

From design to operations: a process management life-cycle performance measurement system for Public-Private Partnerships

Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs) have become a critical vehicle for delivering infrastructure worldwide. Yet, the use of such a procurement strategy has received considerable criticism, as they have been prone to experiencing time/cost overruns and during their operation poorly managed. A key issue contributing to the poor performance of PPPs is the paucity of an effective and comprehensive performance measurement system. There has been a tendency for the performance of PPPs to be measured based on their ex-post criteria of time, cost and quality. Such criteria do not accommodate the complexities and lifecycle of an asset. In addressing this problem, the methodology of sequential triangulation is used to develop and examine the effectiveness of a ‘Process Management Life Cycle Performance Measurement System’. The research provides public authorities and private-sector entities embarking on PPPs with a robust mechanism to effectively measure, control and manage their projects’ life cycle performances, ensuring the assets are ‘future proofed’.     

Communicating Geographical Risks in Crisis Management: The Need for Research

In any crisis, there is a great deal of uncertainty, often geographical uncertainty or, more precisely, spatiotemporal uncertainty. Examples include the spread of contamination from an industrial accident, drifting volcanic ash, and the path of a hurricane. Estimating spatiotemporal probabilities is usually a difficult task, but that is not our primary concern. Rather, we ask how analysts can communicate spatiotemporal uncertainty to those handling the crisis. We comment on the somewhat limited literature on the representation of spatial uncertainty on maps. We note that many cognitive issues arise and that the potential for confusion is high. We note that in the early stages of handling a crisis, the uncertainties involved may be deep, i.e., difficult or impossible to quantify in the time available. In such circumstance, we suggest the idea of presenting multiple scenarios.     

A Probabilistic Model of the Economic Risk to Britain's Railway Network from Bridge Scour During Floods

Scour (localized erosion by water) is an important risk to bridges, and hence many infrastructure networks, around the world. In Britain, scour has caused the failure of railway bridges crossing rivers in more than 50 flood events. These events have been investigated in detail, providing a data set with which we develop and test a model to quantify scour risk. The risk analysis is formulated in terms of a generic, transferrable infrastructure network risk model. For some bridge failures, the severity of the causative flood was recorded or can be reconstructed. These data are combined with the background failure rate, and records of bridges that have not failed, to construct fragility curves that quantify the failure probability conditional on the severity of a flood event. The fragility curves generated are to some extent sensitive to the way in which these data are incorporated into the statistical analysis. The new fragility analysis is tested using flood events simulated from a spatial joint probability model for extreme river flows for all river gauging sites in Britain. The combined models appear robust in comparison with historical observations of the expected number of bridge failures in a flood event. The analysis is used to estimate the probability of single or multiple bridge failures in Britain's rail network. Combined with a model for passenger journey disruption in the event of bridge failure, we calculate a system‐wide estimate for the risk of scour failures in terms of passenger journey disruptions and associated economic costs.     

The Assessment of Research Quality in UK Universities: Peer Review or Metrics?

This paper investigates the extent to which the outcomes of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise in the UK, determined by peer review, can be explained by a set of quantitative indicators. Three cognate units of assessment are examined in detail: business and management, economics and econometrics, and accounting and finance. The main finding is that each of the three components of research activity (namely, research output, esteem and research environment) is highly correlated with various quantitative indicators. A further finding is that the judgement of the Research Assessment Exercise panels was biased in favour of Russell Group universities. There is also evidence of bias by the economics and econometrics panel. The results support the use of quantitative indicators in the research assessment process, particularly a journal quality index. Requiring the panels to take bibliometric indicators into account should help not only to reduce the workload of panels but also to mitigate the problem of implicit bias.     

Environmental regulatory influence and product innovation: the contingency effects of organizational characteristics

This paper examines the relationship between environmental regulatory influence and product innovation in a multi-industry sample of manufacturing organizations. Our theory argues that the influence of environmental regulation on the level of product innovation in a manufacturing organization is at least partially contingent on the organization's internal characteristics—in particular, its structural flexibility and production process flexibility. Hypotheses are derived from our theory and tested, and the results are consistent with the conclusion that structural flexibility and production process flexibility moderate the environmental regulatory influence–product innovation relationship. Whether environmental regulation inhibits or promotes product innovation seems to depend at least in part on certain internal features of an organization. We discuss implications of our results for future organization studies research on environmental regulation, and for research on other types of external constraints on organizational performance.     

Human resource development in small organizations

This article draws upon case-study research into human resource development (HRD) within three small organizations in the north west of England. It positions the case-study work within an overall framework of doctoral research and summarizes the research design; discusses the characteristics and values of small organizations and how they influence HRD policies and practices: presents findings and conclusions about HRD in the case-study organizations, focusing in particular upon one case in the voluntary sector; compares and contrasts the different models of HRD in the three cases; and concludes with some suggestions for further research.