Search results

This paper explains the role, remit and mechanisms available to the Public Guardianship Office in relation to the administration of the financial affairs of adults unable to manage their affairs. A review of 51 cases suggests that in at least four per cent of those abuse may have occurred.

This paper reports some preliminary lessons from a qualitative study of services that have cared for a person with learning disabilities during a terminal illness. It reflects current concern about access to health care as well as the national priority being placed on improvements in cancer services for all patients. The study documents how the service learned of the person's illness, how they mobilised services and made decisions, how agencies worked together (or not!) and what support staff needed in the person's last months and weeks. It also considers the way staff, as individuals and as teams, made sense of their experiences and evaluated the input of other professionals.

This paper explores the links between the PGO and social services in relation to abuse and to local authority management of the finances of vulnerable people. It also reports a small‐scale study of adult protection co‐ordinators in social services departments, which explored the nature of and contact between the two agencies in the context of adult protection inquiries.

The risk of financial abuse is a major concern for the PGO and the Court of Protection. Master Lush has suggested that some 10‐15% of cases brought to the Court involve some element of abuse or impropriety. The study reported here analysed case files identified by PGO staff as those in which abuse was a strong possibility.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent and variation in the estimates to which crime can be prevented using patterns of repeats and near repeats, and whether hotspot analysis complements these patterns.

Crime data for four study areas in New Zealand are used to examine differences in the extent of burglary repeat and near repeat victimisation. Hotspots of burglary are also created to determine the extent to which burglary repeats and near repeats spatially intersect hotspots.

The extent of repeats and near repeats varies, meaning there is variation in the estimated prevention benefits that repeat and near repeat patterns offer. In addition, at least half of the burglaries repeats and near repeats were not located within hotspots.

The use of other techniques for examining crime concentration could be used to improve the research observations.

By showing that levels of repeats and near repeats vary, the extent to which these observations coincide in hotspots offers practitioners a better means of determining whether repeat and near repeat patterns are reliable for informing crime prediction and crime prevention activities.

The paper is the first known research study that explicitly measures the variation in the extent of repeats and near repeats and the spatial intersection of these patterns within crime hotspots. The results suggest that rather than considering the use of repeat and near repeat patterns as a superior method for predicting and preventing crime, value remains in using hotspot analysis for determining where crime is likely to occur, particularly when hotspot analysis emphasises other locations for resource targeting.

The purpose of this paper is to identify both the inspiration sources used by fast fashion designers and ways the designers sort information from the sources during the product development process.

This is a qualitative study, drawing on semi-structured interviews conducted with the members of the in-house design teams of three Australian fast fashion companies.

Australian fast fashion designers rely on a combination of trend data, sales data, product analysis, and travel for design development ideas. The designers then use the consensus and embodiment methods to interpret and synthesise information from those inspiration sources.

The empirical data used in the analysis were limited by interviewing fashion designers within only three Australian companies.

This research augments knowledge of fast fashion product development, in particular designers’ methods and approaches to product design within a volatile and competitive market.

While prior control studies typically focus on organizations with an instrumental approach to corporate sustainability, this study concentrates on organizations with an integrative approach, as the latter is needed to address the grand challenge of sustainable development. As such organizations do not single out the financial objective as the dominant one, they pursue a hybrid mission. This study investigates how a control package can be designed that ensures the persistence of such a hybrid mission.

A case study is undertaken at a luxury hotel chain in which a financial and an environmental objective are continuously balanced. Self-determination theory is used to substantiate insights into how psychological need-supportive controls can be designed at all organizational levels.

This study highlights how controls are not only needed to direct staff behaviour towards the environmental objective but also to ensure that staff at all organizational levels prioritize the objectives in such way that the hybrid mission can be sustained. Besides structural differentiation and centralization of decision-making, the case organization designed need-supportive controls to foster staff's internalization of the environmental objective and value as well as of the integrative approach.

As the need-supportive socialization process fostered staff's integration of the environmental value, this study highlights the transformational potential of controls.

This study provides a unique account of a control package directing staff behaviour towards the balancing of multiple objectives.

Knife crime and serious violent crime (SVC) among youth has been growing at an alarming rate in the UK (Harding and Allen, 2021). Community and school-based intervention and prevention services to tackle knife crime are being developed with some evaluation; however, these are independent and of varied quality and rigour. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to record the approaches being developed and synthesise existing evidence of the impact and effectiveness of programmes to reduce knife crime. In addition, the complex factors contributing to knife crime and SVC are discussed.

A systematic approach was used to conduct this knife crime intervention evidence review using two search engines and four databases. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to ensure focus and relevance. The results of searches and decisions by the research team were recorded at each stage using Preferred Reporting Items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA).

Some evidence underpins the development of services to reduce knife crime. Much of the evidence comes from government funded project reports, intervention and prevention services reports, with few studies evaluating the efficacy of intervention programmes at present. Some studies that measured immediate impact in line with the programme’s aims were found and demonstrated positive results.

This systematic review specifically synthesised the evidence and data derived from knife crime and weapon carrying interventions and preventions, integrating both grey and published literature, with a novel discussion that highlights the importance of outcome evaluations and issues with measuring the success of individual level interventions and their contributions to the overall reduction of violence.