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The article aims to report on research into managerial practices at the workplace level in Britain and Italy in the automobile and aerospace industries. These are examined with regard to their impact on employees' perceptions of skill, training and their relationship to participation. Are advocates of high performance work (HPW) accurate in arguing that it can satisfy aspirations for greater employee influence in contrast to lean working?

The methodology included questionnaires and interviews with employees and union officials in four companies – two in aerospace (one in Britain and one in Italy) and two in automotive final assembly (one in Britain and one in Italy).

One of the recurrent themes to emerge from the worker interviews was that the experience of increased effort was not an inevitable outcome of the shifts in the composition of skills and tasks, but rather, a function of the workers' loss of any semblance of control over their work routines and range of responsibilities. What is distinctive about this case study analysis is that despite obvious material differences between the labour processes and working conditions of highly qualified aerospace engineers employed in HPW environments and semi‐skilled car workers employed on lean assembly lines, in two different countries, similar patterns of degradation of work were obtained. That is, technological change, such as the computerisation of design and production processes, along with various manifestations of lean staffing policies were together generating task enlargement. In micro‐political environments marked by a skewed balance of power between labour and the employer in favour of the latter, workers' autonomy had declined as had their ability to maintain some control over the pace and intensity of work. This does not sit favourably with the assumptions of those who advocate the use of “high performance work systems”.

The paper offers an in‐depth cross national sectoral analysis of claims that so‐called HPW significantly enhances workers' experiences of the workplace in contrast to workers' experiences of lean working environments.

Mainstream offender treatment programmes are mainly inaccessible to offenders who have learning disabilities, which may mean those convicted of offences either receive inappropriate treatment or no offender treatment at all. There is developing, but patchy, provision of community‐based specialist offender treatment for people who have learning disabilities. This paper seeks to describe the evolving process of developing the Good Thinking! course, a group‐based offender treatment programme which aims to help address this need.

The Good Thinking! course comprises 23 two‐hour sessions run once a week in a community setting. It is based on the premise that people who commit offences are often trying to meet ordinary life goals through anti‐social means. It aims to help participants identify and understand their goals, develop the social skills necessary to attain them and teaches a problem‐solving strategy for more complex problems.

This paper describes the process of developing the course material, providing the course and adapting it in light of feedback from participants, referrers and carers. A description of the course and a case study are provided. Insufficient data have been produced to enable a formal evaluation of the effectiveness of the Good Thinking! course; as more data are generated, the team plan to achieve this.

The paper aims to inform and encourage clinicians and commissioners working in this field to increase the availability of specialist community‐based treatments for offenders who have learning disabilities.

This paper explores employee experiences concerning job security/insecurity, workload, job satisfaction and employee involvement in the aftermath of Best Value reviews in a local authority.

Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques employees' experiences of Best Value reviews in a local authority are compared and contrasted with council staff employed elsewhere in the authority to establish the extent to which workplace partnership principles have taken hold under a Best Value regime.

Little evidence of positive outcomes was found from partnership at work under a Best Value regime. The constraints imposed by central government, under which managers in the public sector operate, contributed significantly to partnership at work remaining little more than a hollow shell.

This paper provides a recent in‐depth case study of the experience of workplace partnership, which was developed not discrete from but as part of the Best Value modernisation programme in a local authority.

The purpose of this editorial is to introduce this special issue on “International trade union networks, European works' councils and international labour regimes”.

The editorial provides an overview and introduces the papers which make up the special issue.

These papers allow us to consider the social, political and institutional dimensions of grass roots organising across countries and continents.

The issue adds new insights into the topic in addition to the more typical focus on institutional levels of union engagement.

TOP TITLES, measured by the number of loans from Dumbarton District Libraries last year, were newish books by the following ten authors: Wilbur Smith, Jeffrey Archer, Catherine Cookson, Virginia Andrews, Danielle Steel, C McCullough, Susan Howatch, Desmond Bagley, Belva Plain, Douglas Reeman. (How can anyone be willing to go through life called ‘Belva Plain’?) The most popular non‐fiction writer was James Herriot, and for children (can you guess?), Enid Blyton.

The purpose of this paper is to view the human experiences of the Canterbury earthquakes through a varied set of disciplinary lenses in order to give voice to those who experienced the trauma of the earthquakes, especially groups whose voices might not otherwise be heard.

The research designs represented in this special issue and discussed in this introductory paper cover the spectrum from open-ended qualitative approaches to quantitative survey design. Data gathering methods included video and audio interviews, observations, document analysis and questionnaires. Data were analysed using thematic, linguistic and statistical tools.

The themes discussed in this introductory paper highlight that the Canterbury response and recovery sequence follows similar phases established in other settings such as Hurricane Katrina and the Australian bushfires. The bonding role of community networks was shown to be important, as was the ability to adapt formal and informal leadership to manage crisis situations. Finally, the authors reinforce the important protocols to follow when researching in sensitive contexts.

The introductory paper only discusses the articles in this special issue but it is important to acknowledge that there are other groups whose stories were not shared due to logistical limitations.

This introductory paper sets the scene for the articles that follow by outlining the importance of the human stories of the Canterbury earthquakes, through the eyes of particular groups, for example, medical staff, schools, women, children and refugees. The approach of viewing the experience through different community voices and disciplinary lenses is novel and significant. The lessons that are shared will inform future disaster preparedness, response and recovery policy and planning.

Recounts Christchurch City Council’s attempt to develop a comprehensive strategy through which all employees could focus on improving performance in the varied areas of service to its internal and external customers. Customer satisfaction and value for money were key objectives, though the Council’s intention was to achieve them through identifying “best practice” in the customer‐focused business performance improvement in a local government context. Offers an analysis of several features of the Christchurch improvement strategy considered to be of particular interest to people working in or with local government.

The nature of the courses offered by Southampton Institute and the consequential variety of in‐house databases available meant that power and sophistication in information retrieval was a priority in the selection of an automated library management system. The solution was the purchase and installation of the Danish Supermax system which combines library housekeeping with powerful information retrieval: the background to the choice is described and the facilities offered outlined. The Institute is the first UK user of Supermax; there are, however, many installations throughout Europe.

ARE WE NOT too long overdue for a restatement in truly contemporary terms of the role of public librarianship?