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Since the murder of Steven Hoskin, there have been considerable changes in the way that agencies in Cornwall operate. In order to prevent further tragedies on such a scale, a protocol was agreed by the agencies about when an alert should be triggered (Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Safeguarding Adults Board, 2008). This paper describes the process and implications of the protocol from the perspective of Devon and Cornwall Police, South Western Ambulance Service Trust and Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust. The protocol has improved and encouraged information sharing within and between agencies, which will help to identify and reduce the risks to vulnerable adults.

This paper reviews the progress that Cornwall County has made since the murder of Steven Hoskin and the resulting Serious Case Review (Flynn, 2007). Interviews were held with senior and frontline personnel, whose agencies were in contact with Steven and the people who moved into his bedsit. The agencies have progressed significantly, in terms of attitude and reforming the way in which they work. The outcomes and processes that have resulted from the action plans that were drawn up have been welcomed, although there are still challenges to overcome.

Purpose — This chapter examines links between mobility, risk of social exclusion (SE) and well-being and uses its findings to impute a value to improved (or reduced) mobility. It applies the relevant value to show the benefits of the Melbourne route bus network and to estimate loadings on individual services that are required for service user benefits to break-even with service costs.

Methodology — The research findings are based on econometric modelling of risk of SE and well-being, as a function of a range of likely contributory factors. The modelling draws on household travel survey data and on survey data specifically collected on factors thought likely to affect risk of SE and/or well-being. These factors include social capital, sense of community, household income and trip making, together with a range of psychological and personality variables.

Findings — The modelling shows that a reduced risk of SE is associated with increases in social capital, sense of community, household income and trip making. A lower risk of SE, in turn, is associated with improved reported personal well-being, which is also affected by a range of psychological variables and age. The analysis shows that additional trip making is very highly valued and that this value increases as household income declines. A case study that applies the resulting values shows that Melbourne’s route bus services produce benefits almost four times their costs and that the ‘social inclusion’ benefits calculated in this research comprise the largest single benefit component. This result is particularly important in supporting further investment in improved public transport services.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of product substitutability on sales performance of integrated and decentralised supply chains. The authors model supply chain performance effects by applying a Cournot equation to a combination of different industry configurations. The study aims to extend existing equilibria models in different supply chains by including the effects of product substitutability on supply chain performance. By extending existing equilibria models, the authors explore the relationship between the degree of product substitutability, chain structure and chain performance when some actors of the supply chain behave as Stackelberg leaders in a duopoly.

The paper models a supply chain performance by applying a Cournot equation to different supply chain structures in a duopoly.

The findings indicate that, for each specific-supply chain structures in different market configurations, when product substitutability reaches a certain threshold decentralised supply chains outperform integrated chains, in disagreement with common belief in current existing literature.

The study is limited to the application of differential equations in a competitive market configured as a duopoly. Future studies might extend the same model to a competitive market characterised by more than two actors. The findings imply that current tendency of lean implementations through integrated supply chains does not always favour supply chain performance.

The paper includes implications for the development of a stronger differentiation strategy based on consumer value when markets are characterised by high-product substitutability.

These findings highlight the importance of differentiation and consumer-value generation in markets that follow Nash equilibria as opposed to the current focus on price competition.