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Open government data and access to public sector information is commonplace, yet little attention has focussed on the essential roles and responsibilities in practice of the information and records management professionals, who enable public authorities to deliver open data to citizens. This paper aims to consider the perspectives of open government and information practitioners in England on the procedural and policy implications of open data across local public authorities.

Using four case studies from different parts of the public sector in England (local government, higher education, National Health Service and hospital trust), the research involved master’s level students in the data collection and analysis, alongside academics, thus enhancing the learning experience of students.

There was little consistency in the location of responsibility for open government data policy, the range of job roles involved or the organisational structures, policy and guidance in place to deliver this function. While this may reflect the organisational differences and professional concerns, it makes it difficult to share best practice. Central government policy encourages public bodies to make their data available for re-use. However, local practice is very variable and perhaps understandably responds more to local organisational strategic and resource priorities. The research found a lack of common metadata standards for open data, different choices about which data to open, problems of data redundancy, inconsistency and data integrity and a wide variety of views on the corporate and public benefits of open data.

The research is limited to England and to non-national public bodies and only draws data from a small number of case studies.

The research contributes to the debate about emerging issues around the complexities of open government data and its public benefits, contributing to the discussions around technology-enabled approaches to citizen engagement and governance. It offers new insights into the interaction between open data and public policy objectives, drawing on the experience of local public sectors in England.

Mental health champions (MHCs) and young health ambassadors (YHAs) are two innovative public health interventions. MHCs are practitioners who work in schools and other youth settings and aim to be the “go to” person for mental health in these settings. YHAs are a linked parallel network of young people, who champion mental health and advocate for youth involvement, which was co-produced with young people across all stages of development implementation. This paper aims to identify the potential benefits, barriers and facilitators of these interventions.

Semi-structured qualitative interviews (n = 19) were undertaken with a purposive sample of n = 13 MHCs, and n = 6 YHAs, between June 2021 and March 2022. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, anonymised and then analysed following a thematic approach. Ethical approval was granted by Newcastle University’s Faculty of Medical Sciences Ethics Committee.

The findings are organised under five key themes: motivating factors and rewards for MHCs and YHAs; outcomes for children and young people (CYP) and others; impact on youth settings and culture; facilitators of successful implementation; and implementation challenges and opportunities.

These findings are intended to be of relevance to practice and policy, particularly to those exploring the design, commissioning or implementation of similar novel and low-cost interventions, which aim to improve mental health outcomes for CYP, within the context of youth settings.

The interventions reported on in the present paper are novel and innovative. Little research has previously been undertaken to explore similar approaches, and the individual experiences of those involved in the delivery of these types of interventions.

This chapter uses the historian’s method of micro-history to rethink the significance of the Supreme Court decision Muller v. Oregon (1908). Muller is typically considered a labor law decision permitting the regulation of women’s work hours. However, this chapter argues that through particular attention to the specific context in which the labor dispute took place – the laundry industry in Portland, Oregon – the Muller decision and underlying conflict should be understood as not only about sex-based labor rights but also about how the labor of laundry specifically involved race-based discrimination. This chapter investigates the most important conflicts behind the Muller decision, namely the entangled histories of white laundresses’ labor and labor activism in Portland, as well as the labor of their competitors – Chinese laundrymen. In so doing, this chapter offers an intersectional reading of Muller that incorporates regulations on Chinese laundries and places the decision in conversation with a long line of anti-Chinese laundry legislation on the West Coast, including that at issue in Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886).

Contrary to prevailing wisdom, international development does not either succeed or fail. It does both. With reference to case study material gleaned from working with both grant‐makers and international civil society organisations, this article critiques both the assumptions and organisation of development. Development initiatives create small islands of beneficial change for children but in general suffer from donor‐led managerial approaches, the dominance of upward accountability to Northern agencies, poor relationships and the tendency to both generalise and simplify. Globally, governments and civil society are failing to protect millions of vulnerable children and promote their participation in decision‐making. But better outcomes for children are possible. This article articulates the problems but also demonstrates how: (1) partnerships could be reoriented so that power relations are continually challenged; (2) planning mechanisms could be more focused and efficient; and (3) innovation, learning and reflective action could be promoted so that practice is appropriate to the context and therefore promotes better outcomes for children.

This study aims to investigate student mentors' perceptions of peer mentor relationships in a health professions education program.

The design uses embodied hermeneutic phenomenology. The data comprise 10 participant interviews and visual “body maps” produced in response to guided questions.

The findings about student mentors' perceptions of peer mentor relationships include a core theme of nurturing a trusting learning community and five related themes of attunement to mentees, commonality of experiences, friends with boundaries, reciprocity in learning and varied learning spaces.

The study contributes original insights by highlighting complexity, shifting boundaries, liminality, embodied social understanding and trusting intersubjective relations as key considerations in student peer mentor relationships.

Finding a suitable home can be difficult in a constrained housing market such as small rural village. Within Ambridge, only a small proportion of the homes in the village is known about, and it is rare for additional homes to be added to those where named characters live. This chapter takes a generational view of housing pathways and options, showing how Generation X, Millennial and Generation Z populations in Ambridge are housed. The chapter examines the extent to which characters rely on friends or family for solving their housing problems and considers the role of family wealth and wider dependence in determining housing pathways. The research shows that dependence on others' access to property is by far the most pronounced feature of housing options for these households. These pathways and housing choices are compared to the wider context in rural England, to consider the extent to which luck, in the form of the mythical ‘Ambridge Fairy’, plays a role in helping people to find housing. The ways in which the Ambridge Fairy manifests are also considered – showing that financial windfalls, unexpectedly available properties and convenient patrons are more likely to be available to people with social capital and established (and wealthy) family networks. The specific housing pathway of Emma Grundy is reviewed to reflect on the way in which her housing journey is typical of the rural working-class experience of her generation, within the wider housing policy context.

Ambridge residents live with extended kin and non-family members much more often than the population of the United Kingdom as a whole. This chapter explores cultural norms, economic need, and family and health care to explain patterns of coresidence in the village of Ambridge. In landed families, filial obligation and inheritance norms bind multigenerational families to a common dwelling, while scarcity of affordable rural housing inhibits residential independence and forces reliance on access to social networks and chance to find a home among the landless. Across the socioeconomic spectrum, coresidence wards off loneliness among unpartnered adults. Finally, for Archers listeners, extended kin and non-kin coresidence creates a private space where dialogue gives added dimensionality and depth to characters who would otherwise be known only through their interactions in public spaces.

This paper delineates workplace and work based learning before going on to discuss in detail the application of workplace learning, based on experience gained from a number of case studies. The rationale, operational aspects and quality assurance requirements are described, before attention is turned to delivery methods, project management and financial considerations. The paper identifies the problems and opportunities associated with adopting this form of academic delivery for an existing university programme, and provides suggestions for likely future development.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether gender diversity on board and financial expertise on audit committee affect accounting conservatism in banking sector. Additionally, the authors focus on the effects of board characteristics on bank earnings quality and examine their effects on earnings persistence.

The authors use a large sample of 159 banks from nine different countries from the period 2004-2010. The authors study whether the differences in the timeliness of earnings to bad news and earnings quality across governance structures of banks are driven by differences across investor protection and bank regulation levels in banks.

The findings confirm the monitoring role of both female and financial experts, noting a positive effect of them on accounting conservatism and earnings quality in banks. According to the institutional characteristics, the results suggest the complementary role of banking regulation and investor protection levels in these effects, noting that in contexts of higher regulatory and greater investor protection environments, gender diversity and financial expertise on boards have more influence on the conservatism and earnings quality of banks.

The authors contribute to both the accounting quality literature and the corporate governance literature by identifying board characteristics that are associated with higher conservatism and quality of earnings in banks around the world. In addition, this study also contributes to the ethics literature by highlighting the benefits of gender diversity and financial expertise in upholding the integrity of financial reporting. Moreover, this paper adds to prior literature about board of directors and accounting quality by identifying additional complementary factors – bank regulation and investor protection – and by focusing on a specific industry, the banking industry.