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This paper is the sequel to the authors' earlier paper in this journal and aims to present the “future research” outlined in that paper.

The approaches being employed by Welsh local authorities in commissioning home care from the independent sector are surveyed to see how a mixed economy of care is being implemented. The observed differences are analysed to see what can be learnt for the benefit of public sector managers concerned with the development of commissioning practices. Semi‐structured interviews have been performed with home care managers and commissioning officers in 13 (60 per cent) of the local, unitary authorities in Wales. Managers at independent home care providers have been interviewed also. The study has been ongoing since September 2004. For comparison, Barnet in England has been included because, unlike any Welsh authority, it has implemented 100 per cent outsourcing of home care. Croydon has been included as it has a good practice brokerage that has helped it to expand its provision from the independent sector.

Great diversity is seen in the approaches adopted by the Welsh local authorities when commissioning home care from the independent sector. They differ in the proportion of home care that is commissioned from the independent sector, what is commissioned, the number of independent providers and the contractual arrangements. These features are used to develop a taxonomy of home care strategies that reveals high levels of diversity. It is seen that in Wales there has been less political drive and compulsion to outsource home care than in England, but the natural desire to reduce costs in the face of a growing need for home care is now driving outsourcing in Wales.

This paper provides guidance to public sector managers in local authorities seeking best practice in the commissioning of home care from the independent sector.

The existing literature contains little research into good practice in the commissioning of home care by local authorities from the independent sector. This paper is a timely contribution to addressing this shortfall.

This paper aims to help public sector managers that are formulating strategies for outsourcing home care from the independent sector.

A review was performed of relevant literature on the outsourcing of home care and its political drivers in the UK. This indicates that the future of home care services, taking into consideration outsourcing and how Best Value will be achieved, has not been researched widely. Therefore, an exploratory approach to research was adopted here using in‐depth analysis of a small number of particularly informative local authorities and private providers selected by purposive/judgemental (extreme and critical case) sampling. Personal contact was deemed necessary in order to perform an intensive investigation to pursue in‐depth information.

The British Government's Best Value regime is driving local authorities towards increasing levels of outsourcing in the provision of home care. A local authority may choose to outsource all of its home care or maintain some in‐house provision based on capacity or capabilities that are complementary to those provided by the independent sector. The 100 per cent outsourcing strategy places enabling demands on the local authority, whereas the alternative strategy requires decisions to be made on what should be outsourced. Across the authorities surveyed, six strategies for creating a mixed economy of care have been identified, with the mix being based on complementary capacity and/or capabilities. With Best Value driving authorities to consider lower‐cost options, the outcome may be a reduction in the amount of complementary capacity provided in‐house, in favour of strategies involving complementary capabilities that deliver the Best Value possible. Re‐enablement is emerging as a common, complementary or core capability that is remaining in‐house. Outsourcing also requires decisions to be made on the number of independent providers to be used and the type of contracts to be employed. This paper considers the decisions that have been made in the local authorities surveyed and critiques the alternative home care outsourcing strategies so derived.

To date, the research has focused on Wales in general plus a few local authorities in England. The next stage will be to survey England in more detail along with other countries that are implementing substantial outsourcing of home care, such as Canada.

This paper provides timely guidance to public sector and health care managers seeking Best Value in home care through outsourcing.

Little has been found in the literature on strategies for outsourcing home care, yet such strategies are needed urgently in the UK to achieve Best Value. The World Health Organization stresses that strategies should be drawn up for providing support to patients and carers at community level in order to avoid costly institutional care.

The market for the assurance of carbon emissions disclosures is showing intensive growth. However, due to the largely voluntary nature of carbon reporting and assurance, there are currently no clear standards or guidelines and little is known about it. The purpose of this paper is to examine the reporting and assurance practices for carbon emissions disclosures.

This study provides evidence on this market, with a sample that includes 13,419 firm-year observations across 58 countries between 2010 and 2017 from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) database.

The results show that the demand for carbon emissions reporting comes mainly from North America, the UK and Japan. Recently, markets such as South Africa have also shown increased demand for carbon reporting. The data also shows that more firms are seeking assurance for their carbon emissions reports. Legitimacy, stakeholder and institutional theories are used to explain the findings of this study.

The results have important implications for firms that produce carbon emissions disclosures, assurance service providers, legislators, regulators and the users of the reports and there should be more specific disclosure guidelines for level and scope of reporting.

Amongst the firms that do provide assurance on their carbon emissions reports, a majority do so using specialist assurance providers, with only limited assurance being provided. The results further show that a myriad of assurance frameworks is being used to assure the carbon emissions disclosures.

Specialist CAMHS provide skilled assessment and interventions for children, young people and their families who have mental health disorders. The training needs of the staff who work in specialist CAMHS are not always clear or prioritised, due to the complexities and differing contexts in which specialist CAMHS are provided. The aim of this paper was to establish stakeholders' experiences of service complexities and challenges that affect training within specialist CAMHS. The project employed interviews to gain wide‐ranging consultation with key stakeholder groups. The sample consisted of 45 participants recruited from policy departments, professional bodies, higher education providers, commissioners, service managers, and practitioners. The participants identified a number of themes that limit training, and put forward solutions on how these could be facilitated in the future. Emerging themes related to leadership and the role of service managers, strategic management of training, commissioning, levels of staff training, resources, impact of training on service users, and availability of training programmes. The findings emphasise the need for the strategic workforce planning of training to meet service delivery goals. Policy, commissioning, workforce training strategies, service needs, and delivery of training should be integrated and closely linked.

This paper argues that there is a need for a healthy independent specialist women's refuge sector to address the housing needs of black minority ethnic and refugee (BMER) women. It will consider barriers to equal access that BMER women have and how they could be addressed by specialist services. The paper examines how housing inequality creates additional barriers for BMER women fleeing domestic violence, and provides arguments for the way in which specialist services address inequality from the perspective of race, class and gender. The primary research provides a snapshot of the impact that the lack of access to provision has for BMER women. A case is made for a strengthened independent specialist sector as a way to address the housing needs of women who flee domestic violence. Key recommendations are identified on how housing policies, practices and service provision can be strengthened.

In July 2007, Housing 21 began an exploration of how changes to the system of social care called personalisation might impact on specialist housing provision in England. Personalisation now forms the basis of English social care policy focusing the delivery of public services on what people might want or choose, in the context of eligibility criteria and means testing. It is designed to promote greater choice and control of the support that people receive.However, there have been concerns that the views of older people living in extra care housing settings have not been heard in the implementation of personalisation. In 2008‐09 Housing 21 engaged older people and other groups with an interest in sheltered and extra care housing to debate the implications of personalisation for current and future housing, care and support services. This article discusses what arose from this consultation and its relevance to housing providers and commissioners.

This brief considers how small and specialist higher education providers in England have approached creating an inclusive learning community, particularly focusing on ethnically diverse students. It notes that sector efforts are surrounded by controversy and sometimes viewed by politicians or the media as either misunderstood, deliberately positioned as “wokery” or against the principles of free speech. Yet there is substantial evidence and a regulatory requirement to improve the student experience and outcomes of diverse students. Through the models of anti-racism and allyship, GuildHE has created a package of support for small and specialist institutions to navigate the complexities of institutional change. This brief provides examples of how our members have made positive steps to become more inclusive, thoughtful, knowledgeable and impactful and provides recommendations to government, HEIs and individuals to continue to improve experiences and outcomes for students.

With the rapid evolution of technology and the changing pattern of wine purchase, providers need to consider the adoption of technology by consumers and hence how this impacts on strategic marketing planning. This paper tracks the evolution of Internet marketing of wine in the UK and focuses on whether wine providers currently use the Internet as a fundamental ingredient of their marketing strategy or whether the Internet is purely employed tactically. The authors present evidence that the wine sector is under‐utilising the potential of the Internet as part of an integrated marketing strategy and proposes that a customer‐oriented computer interface is required.

Within the “wicked” concept of ageing, this paper aims to primarily model an integrated approach to identifying and evaluating opportunities that deliver innovative outcomes in Ageing Well Practice, Health and Economic Policy and Research Actions using a collaborative and entrepreneurial mindset. The strategic focus is on a “Boomer” (user)-driven and facilitated Network – that brings together health professionals, research specialists, technologists, ageing well providers, “encore” career specialists, life-style providers, community groups, wealth creation specialists and industry innovators to streamline the progression of identified concepts to valued users and markets and enhance the economy.

Using the unit of analysis for innovation, i.e. the “added-value” as perceived by the user and not simply a product or a technology, the identified “opportunity-outcome” will embed a new service concept or intervention, which embraces and promotes ageing well, independent living or resident-centred care in the community and delivers direct and indirect economic benefits.

The authors model a point of differentiation in facilitating existing ageing well policies in the community, through a focus on an integrated and multi-dimensional collaborative framework that can deliver user value and contributes to community and economic benefits.

Generalising results without a commercial business case from this single strategic viewpoint requires caution. The positive outcomes from this innovation collaborative concept can be used to guide further policy development and business investment in ageing well needs.

Such an integrated innovation collaborative structure provides the capacity to identify ageing well opportunities, to contract enterprises, both SMEs’ and larger companies, for development of the opportunities into user-valued outcomes, to network venture resources and deliver these outcomes to a sustainable market of ageing well citizens.

The Ageing Well Innovation collaborative framework identifies practical ways to integrate new concepts of ageing participation to be realised by the increasing number of “Boomers”. It provides a self-managing process for linking individuals, public and private parties to maximise information and ideas flow, and engagement of the skilled resources in the Boomer group.

The innovation collaborative structure proposed is not simply novel but is a targeted focus on entrepreneurship and innovation applied strategically to the needs of ageing boomers and community needs. The added-value is in the demonstrated enhancement to effective innovation outcomes in community ageing and the economy.

Barriers to adequate healthcare in rural areas remain a grand challenge for local healthcare systems. In addition to patients' travel burdens, lack of health insurance, and lower health literacy, rural healthcare systems also experience significant resource shortages, as well as issues with recruitment and retention of healthcare providers, particularly specialists. These factors combined result in complex change management-focused challenges for rural healthcare systems. Change management initiatives are often resource intensive, and in rural health organizations already strapped for resources, it may be particularly risky to embark on change initiatives. One way to address these change management concerns is by leveraging socio-technical simulation models to estimate techno-economic feasibility (e.g., is it technologically feasible, and is it economical?) as well as socio-utility feasibility (e.g., how will the changes be utilized?). We present a framework for how healthcare systems can integrate modeling and simulation techniques from systems engineering into a change management process. Modeling and simulation are particularly useful for investigating the amount of uncertainty about potential outcomes, guiding decision-making that considers different scenarios, and validating theories to determine if they accurately reflect real-life processes. The results of these simulations can be integrated into critical change management recommendations related to developing readiness for change and addressing resistance to change. As part of our integration, we present a case study showcasing how simulation modeling has been used to determine feasibility and potential resistance to change considerations for implementing a mobile radiation oncology unit. Recommendations and implications are discussed.