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This article is based on a review of reported studies of joint commissioning in practice, which are surprisingly few in number. It concludes that there is little solid evidence that the process leads to benefits for service users, but there is evidence of its resulting in improved inter‐agency working. A second article in a subsequent issue of this journal will go on to consider whether the new partnership flexibilities offer the potential to learn from this evidence.

Trades Unions are shedding their cloth cap image at the negotiating table for one of well‐briefed tough talkers. Behind this new force are growing ranks of university‐educated research assistants in the trades unions' headquarters. David Grayston reports.

In 2018, the World Health Organization released its latest report on air pollution identifying that seven million people die annually as a result of poor air quality. Moreover, it is estimated that 90% of the world's population is exposed to ‘dangerous levels’ of air pollution (WHO, 2018a). This is an alarming news, given the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number three seeks to ‘substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemical and air, water and soil pollution and contamination’ (WHO, 2016). In addition, the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has publicly stated that ‘…air pollution threatens us all, but the poorest and most marginalised people bear the brunt of the burden… If we don't take urgent action on air pollution, we will never come close to achieving sustainable development’ (WHO, 2018b). This chapter explores the political economy of global air pollution including an analysis of international trade that perpetuates and exacerbates emissions and the environmental injustices associated with global warming and air quality ill health. It also draws on discourses of power, harm and violence to analyse air pollution and climate change within frameworks of green criminology and atmospheric justice.

Goal 5 of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) prioritises gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls. Key to achieving this is addressing violence against women (VAW; see SDG target 5.2) and, we believe, understanding the role of technology in both enacting and combating VAW. In this chapter, we outline how technology-facilitated VAW threatens women's use of technology and discuss policies and practices of support workers and practitioners that aid safe use of digital media. We consider features of technology-facilitated VAW advocacy which differ from traditional VAW advocacy, using examples from the Global North and South. Information communication technologies (ICTs) are used by VAW advocates in a range of ways; to provide information and education about domestic violence, safe use of technology and negotiating the legal and criminal justice systems; collect evidence about abuse; provide support; and pursue social change. As the capabilities and prevalence of ICT and devices increase and access costs decrease, these channels offer new and innovative opportunities capitalising on the spacelessness, cost-effectiveness and timelessness of media. Nonetheless, technological initiatives are not perfect or failsafe. Throughout the pages that follow, we acknowledge the limitations and challenges of technology-facilitated advocacy, which could hinder application of the SDG.

One of the key normative questions that critical smart city scholars pose is if, and how, politically meaningful agency of citizens in the neoliberal smart city is possible? The Lefebvrian concept of the “right to the city” proves particularly fruitful in this endeavor, as it allows for imaging ways and possibilities in which citizens can assert the use value of the city over the exchange value, and thus affirm the social “urban” over the economic “city.” This chapter seeks to contribute to this quest for and imaginations of politically meaningful agency in the neoliberal smart city. First, it does so by arguing that what smart city scholarship typically considers as politically meaningful interventions into the neoliberal smart city are too often initiatives that are strongly influenced by peoples’ and cities’ access to specific and unevenly distributed resources, like technological or political literacies and economic (infra-) structures. Therefore, and second, the chapter proposes that we look for critical interventions into the neoliberal smart city by “ordinary citizens” elsewhere, namely, in urban inhabitants’ everyday readings of the promotional and performative narrative of the neoliberal smart city.