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Being able to speak in private to an adult about whom there is a safeguarding concern is central to English local authorities’ duty under the Care Act 2014 to make enquiries in such cases. While there has been an on-going debate about whether social workers or others should have new powers to effect these enquiries, it has been unclear how common obstructive behaviour by third parties is and how often this causes serious problems or is unresolved. The purpose of this paper is to address this knowledge gap.

A survey of local authority adult safeguarding managers was conducted in 2016 and interviews were undertaken with managers and social workers in three local authorities. Data were analysed descriptively.

Estimates of numbers and frequency of cases of obstruction varied widely. Most survey respondents and interview participants described situations where there had been some problems in accessing an adult at risk. Those that were serious and long-standing problems of access were few in number, but were time consuming and often distressing for the professionals involved.

Further survey research on the prevalence of obstructive behaviour of third parties may not command greater response rates unless there is a specific policy proposal or a case that has “hit the headlines”. Other forms of data collection and reporting may be worth considering. Interview data likewise potentially suffer from problems of recall and definition.

At times professionals will hear of, or encounter, difficulties in accessing an adult at risk about whom there is concern. Support from supervisors and managers is needed by practitioners as such cases can be distressing. Localities may wish to collect and reflect upon such cases so that there is learning from practice about possible resolution and outcomes.

There is no evidence of large numbers of cases where access is denied or very difficult. Those cases where there are problems are memorable to practitioners. Small numbers of cases, however, do not necessarily mean that the problem of gaining access is insignificant.

This study addressed a question which is topical in England and provides evidence about the frequency of the problem of gaining access to adults at risk. There has been no comparable study in England.

The purpose of this paper is to present findings from one element of a study exploring the relationship between personalisation, in the form of personal budgets (PBs) for publicly funded social care and safeguarding.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 people receiving PBs who had recently been the focus of a safeguarding investigation. Participants were recruited from two English local authority areas and data were subject to thematic analysis.

The analysis identified three main themes: levels of information and awareness; safeguarding concerns and processes; and choice and control. Many of the participants in this small study described having experienced multiple forms of abuse or neglect concurrently or repeatedly over time.

This was a small scale, qualitative study, taking place in two local authorities. The small number of participants may have had strong opinions which may or may not have been typical. However, the study provides some rich data on people’s experiences.

The findings suggest that adults receiving PBs may need information on an ongoing and repeated basis together with advice on how to identify and address poor quality care that they are arranging for themselves. Practitioners need to be aware of the influence of the level of information received and the interaction of organisational or legal requirements when responding to safeguarding concerns when care being supplied tries to reflect the benefits of choice and control.

This paper reports original research asking adults with care and support needs about the interaction between two key policies of safeguarding and personalisation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore debates about the powers social workers may need to undertake safeguarding enquiries where access to the adult is denied.

The paper takes as a starting point a scoping review of the literature undertaken as part of a study exploring social work responses to situations where they are prevented from speaking to an adult at risk by a third party.

A power of entry might be one solution to situations where social workers are prevented from accessing an adult at risk. The paper focuses on the Scottish approach to legal powers in adult safeguarding, established by the Adult Support and Protection Act (Scotland) 2007 and draws out messages for adult safeguarding in England and elsewhere. The literature review identified that debates over the Scottish approach are underpinned by differing conceptualisations of vulnerability, autonomy and privacy, and the paper relates these conceptualisations to different theoretical stances.

The paper concludes that the literature suggests that a more socially mediated rather than an essentialist understanding of the concepts of vulnerability, autonomy and privacy allows for more nuanced approaches to social work practice in respect of using powers of entry and intervention with adults at risk who have capacity to make decisions.

This paper provides a novel perspective on debates over how to overcome challenges to accessing adults at risk in adult safeguarding through an exploration of understandings of vulnerability, privacy and autonomy.

Whether social workers should have a power of entry in cases where individuals seem to be hindering safeguarding enquiries for community-dwelling adults at risk is a topical question in England. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a re-examination of relevant sections of the 2012 Government Safeguarding Power of Entry Consultation.

Re-analysis of responses to question three of the 2012 Government’s Safeguarding Power of Entry Consultation was undertaken in late 2015-early 2016. The consultation submissions were located and searched for information on views of the prevalence of the situations where access to an adult at risk (with decision-making capacity) is being hindered by a third party and the nature of examples where a new power of entry might be considered appropriate by consultation respondents.

The majority of respondents to the consultation generally reported that situations when a new power of entry would be required were not encountered regularly; however a minority of respondents stated these situations occurred more frequently. Examples of situations where third parties appeared to be hindering access were given across the different categories of adults at risk and types of abuse and current practices were described. Respondents observed that the risks of excessive or inappropriate use of any new powers needed to be considered carefully.

This re-analysis sheds light on the prevalence and circumstances of the problems encountered about access to adults at risk. The legal framework of adult safeguarding continues to be of interest to policy makers, researchers and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to explore links between the staff values and skills identified by Davies and Matuska and other literature. The commentary aims to place these values and skills in the context of established approaches to working with people with learning disabilities, to explore their impact on recruitment and to outline limitations on their applications.

The commentary explores the implications of Davies and Matuska’s findings, relating these to previous research and policy literature.

The commentary argues that it is important to stress the complexity of working with people with learning disabilities and the qualities of workers required. In addition, the importance of values-based recruitment (VBR) is also supported. Finally, the commentary points to the importance of creative ways of overcoming the limitations presented by current austerity policies.

The commentary links characteristics and skills of staff valued by people with learning disabilities with person-centred care and VBR.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of personalisation policy on the providers of social care services in England, mainly to older people, within the context of austerity and different conceptions of personalisation.

The paper draws on part of a longitudinal study of the care workforce, which involved 188 interviews with managers and staff, undertaken in two rounds.

Four themes were identified: changing understandings and awareness of personalisation; adapting services to fit new requirements; differences in contracting; and the impact on business viability.

The paper reflects a second look at the data focussing on a particular theme, which was not the focus of the research study. Furthermore, the data were gathered from self-selecting participants working in services in four contrasting areas, rather than a representative sample.

The research raises questions about the impact of a commercial model of “personalised care”, involving personal budgets (PBs) and spot contracts, on the stability of social care markets. Without a pluralistic, well-funded and vibrant social care market, it is hard to increase the consumer choice of services from a range of possible providers and, therefore, fulfil the government’s purposes for personalisation, particularly in a context of falling revenues from local authorities.

The research presents an analysis of interviews with care providers and care workers mainly working with older people. Their views on personalisation have not often been considered in contrast to the sizeable literature on PBs recipients and social workers.

Opinion is divided on whether a new power of entry should be introduced for social workers in cases where individuals seem to be hindering safeguarding enquiries for community-dwelling adults at risk in England who have decision-making capacity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the prevalence and circumstances of situations where access to an adult at risk is denied or difficult and what helps those in practice. The study consists of a literature review, a survey of adult safeguarding managers and interviews with social care staff in three case studies of local authorities. As part of the contextual literature review, during 2014 the authors located parliamentary debates on the subject and this paper reports on their analysis.

Following approaches were used in historical research, documentary analysis was carried out on transcripts of parliamentary debates available online from Hansard, supplemented by other materials that were referenced in speeches and set in the theoretical context of the representations of social problems.

The authors describe the content of debates on the risks and benefits of a new right to access for social workers and the role of parliamentary champions who determinedly pursued this policy, putting forward three unsuccessful amendments in efforts to insert such a new power into the Care Act 2014.

There are limits to a focus on parliamentary reports and the limits of Hansard reporting are small but need to be acknowledged. However, adult safeguarding research has surprisingly not undertaken substantial analyses of political rhetoric despite the public theatre of the debate and the importance of legislative initiatives and monitoring.

This paper adds to the history of adult safeguarding in England. It also offers insight into politicians’ views on what is known/unknown about the prevalence and circumstances of the problems with gaining access to adults with capacity where there are safeguarding concerns and politicians’ views on the merits or hazards of a power of access.

This paper aims to offer an original analysis of how three of the largest aerospace and defense (A&D) companies equipped their organizations for merger integration success.

Through a multi-case study, this paper explores the post-merger integration process for large-scale transactions completed over a 25-year period. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with industry executives and leading management consultants. The process involved collection of primary data, analysis of secondary data drawn from publicly available company documents and identification of key factors that led to success.

Five interdependent success factors (Figure 1) support integration teams and capture deal value. Managing the process as a megaproject further facilitates the effectiveness of post-merger integration, enabling leaders to remain laser-focused on integration activity while driving toward a long-term vision for the newly formed organization.

Merger integration has been identified as a primary source of deficiency that prevents acquirers from achieving anticipated results, negatively affecting merger success. Based on the findings of this paper, firms are more likely to create a compelling long-term value creation agenda when five essential factors are combined with a megaproject approach to manage the post-merger integration process.

This study advances current knowledge in the field by responding to requests to further explore the dimensions of merger integration that facilitate success and improve shareholder value, contributing new data to inform extant theories regarding merger integration and megaproject management and adding to the limited research on post-merger integration within the A&D industry.

This article describes research investigating the steps involved in recommending to the Secretary of State for Health whether a care worker should be included on the Protection of Vulnerable Adults (POVA) list, which records individuals barred from working and volunteering with vulnerable adults in England and Wales.The aims of the study were to investigate patterns of referrals to the list; factors associated with the collection of evidence to present to the Minister and to detail the operation of the list.The article focuses on the preliminary part of the research that covered discussion groups with purposive sample of older people, managers and staff during which a vignette approach was used to explore their perspectives.

Although SAP R/3 has become widely utilised as a means to change IT systems and business processes, not all organizations embarking on its implementation have achieved their intended results. However, leading practices have demonstrated that success is essentially conditional on managing adequately the complex context of implementation, which necessitates organizational changes across various key areas related to strategy, business processes, IT, structure, culture, and management systems. This paper describes a proposed model presenting the implementation of SAP R/3 from an integrative and holistic perspective. The model is developed based on reported experiences of several best practice organizations. The central theme of the paper argues that at the heart of effective SAP R/3 implementation, a fully balanced perspective has to be taken. On the other hand, the exclusive focus on technical aspects, at the cost of change management elements, has proved to be far from successful.