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The aim of this paper is to examine the significance and the implications of efforts to institute workforce modernization within the police service in England and Wales.

The approach taken uses an analysis of the modernization proposals advanced by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary as its starting point.

The development of workforce modernization in the police service would appear to have eroded the hitherto “reform‐resistant” nature of policing, however political factors continue to impede reform.

Although more evidence concerning the scale and the outcomes of the reform process would be desirable, the main implication of this paper is that workforce modernization in the police is viable, but constrained by political factors.

Empirically, the paper focuses on developments in a sector – the police service – that has been neglected by the existing literature on workforce modernization; theoretically, it demonstrates the important influence often exercised by political contingencies over public sector workforce reform.

The desirability of having a more flexible workforce is emphasised across many health systems yet this goal is as ambiguous as it is ubiquitous. In the absence of empirical studies in healthcare that have defined flexibility as an outcome, the purpose of this paper is to draw on classic management and sociological theory to reduce this ambiguity.

The paper uses the Weberian tool of “ideal types”. Key workforce reforms are held against Atkinson’s model of functional flexibility which aims to increase responsiveness and adaptability through multiskilling, autonomy and teams; and Taylorism which seeks stability and reduced costs through specialisation, fragmentation and management control.

Appeals to an amorphous goal of increasing workforce flexibility make an assumption that any reform will increase flexibility. However, this paper finds that the work of healthcare professionals already displays most of the essential features of functional flexibility but many widespread reforms are shifting healthcare work in a Taylorist direction. This contradiction is symptomatic of a failure to confront inevitable trade-offs in reform: between the benefits of specialisation and the costs of fragmentation; and between management control and professional autonomy.

The paper questions the conventional conception of “the problem” of workforce reform as primarily one of professional control over tasks. Holding reforms against the ideal types of Taylorism and functional flexibility is a simple, effective way the costs and benefits of workforce reform can be revealed.

The purpose of this paper is to review the evidence about the factors shaping the police workforce, commissioned by the Scottish Police Authority and Scottish Institute for Policing Research.

The paper uses the theory of strategic fit to assess the available evidence relating to reshaping the police workforce and brings together the most relevant recent reviews of police organisations and empirical studies on these issues. The use of the theory enabled the strategies that have been adopted by police agencies in recent years to be evaluated in relation to the current political and economic environment.

The authors find that here is considerable uncertainty and while there has been previous discussion on the benefits of larger or smaller forces there is not robust evidence that a particular force size is optimal for either efficacy or efficiency, although very small forces may struggle in some ways. There is also mixed evidence about whether increasing police organisation resourcing to allow more officers to be employed reduces crime levels, and there is a relative lack of evidence about the impact this has on the other areas of community life in which police are involved.

There are major weaknesses in research relating to police organisational reform: there is no accepted theory of police reform, no accepted method as to how such a reform should be evaluated nor have there been any comparative studies of earlier police civilianisation programs (Braithwaite, Westbrook and Ledema, 2005).

Previous work on this topic often focuses on which organisational structure – whether in terms of workforce mix or size – is most efficient or effective. This research takes an alternative perspective and argues for a shift in the research agenda to take account of the friction involved in processes of organisational change, both in order to build a stronger research understanding of these important aspects of change and to more effectively inform policy. The paper provides a basis for the development of theories for understanding police reform in general – and workforce restructuring in particular – alongside appropriate methods for researching it.

This study is a considered interpretation of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for the health professions, which commenced operations in Australia in 2010. The development of the Scheme and its operational elements (namely the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and 14 profession-specific national Boards) are positioned within the context of regulatory capitalism. Regulatory capitalism merges the experience of neoliberalism with an attentiveness to risk, particularly by the State. Nationally consistent legislation put in place a new set of arrangements that enabled the continuity of governments’ role in health workforce governance. The new arrangements resulted in an entity which is neither exclusively subservient to nor independent of the State, but rather “quasi-independent.” In exploring this arrangement, specific consideration is given to how the regulatory response matched the existing reality of a global (and national) health workforce market. This study considers this activity by the State as one of consolidation, as opposed to fracturing, against a backdrop of purposeful regulatory reform.

The purpose of this paper is to call for strong medical co-leadership in transforming the Australian health system. The paper discusses how Health LEADS Australia, the Australian health leadership framework, offers an opportunity to engage medical clinicians and doctors in the leadership of health services.

The paper first discusses the nature of medical leadership and its associated challenges. The paper argues that medical leaders have a key role in the design, implementation and evaluation of healthcare reforms, and in translating these reforms for their colleagues. Second, this paper describes the origins and nature of Health LEADS Australia. Third, this paper discusses the importance of the goal of Health LEADS Australia and suggests the evidence-base underpinning the five foci in shaping medical leadership education and professional development. This paper concludes with suggestions on how Health LEADS Australia might be evaluated.

For the well-being of the Australian health system, doctors need to play an important role in the kind of leadership that makes measurable differences in the retention of clinical professions; improves organisational cultures; enhances the engagement of consumers and their careers; is associated with better patient and public health outcomes; effectively addresses health inequalities; balances cost effectiveness with improved quality and safety; and is sustainable.

This is the first article addressing Health LEADS Australia and medical leadership. Australia is actively engaging in a national approach to health leadership. Discussions about the mechanisms and intentions of this are valuable in both national and global health leadership discourses.

Although part of the United Kingdom, Scotland has its own distinctive education and schooling system, with university-based teacher education preparing teachers for an all-graduate profession. Through the establishment, in 1965, of the General Teaching Council (GTC) as the regulatory body for the teaching profession in Scotland, the General Teaching Council of Scotland became one of the first teaching councils in the world. In the twenty-first century, there have been two major reform programs impacting the teaching profession: A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century in 2001 and Teaching Scotland's Future in 2011. Currently, there is a major reform program underway arising from the recommendations of a further review looking at aspects of education reform and structural and functional change of key national agencies (the Scottish Qualifications Authority and Education Scotland). The reform program will have a number of implications for teacher education. These developments are explored in this chapter which situates them in the wider context of teacher education reform globally and current challenges such as recruitment downturns and retention issues, strengthening research on teacher education and the pressures of increasing accountability.

This chapter focuses on researchers as knowledge workers in higher education in England as an illustration of what Katznelson (2003, p. 189) identifies as the ‘professional scholar’ undertaking intellectual work as a public intellectual. I begin by examining the challenges to intellectual work and its location in a university, particular from the media and the popularity of what Bourdieu calls Le Fast Talkers ¹ – those who talk a lot but have nothing much to say. After drawing out the tensions within knowledge production, I then locate the analysis of what it means to do research in a period of education policymaking in England between 1997 and 2010, when New Labour called on researchers to produce evidence to support radical reforms. In particular, I argue that school effectiveness and school improvement (SESI) knowledge workers in Schools of Education in higher education in England are an interesting case for investigating the public intellectual positioning as ‘detached attachment’ (Melzner, 2003, p. 4), particularly through their attachment to New Labour governments and the subsequent detachment following a change of government in May 2010.

Some of Australia’s most severe and protracted workforce shortages are in public sector community mental health (CMH) services. Research identifying the factors affecting staff turnover of this workforce has been limited. The purpose of this paper is to identify work factors negatively affecting the job satisfaction of early career health professionals working in rural Australia’s public sector CMH services.

In total, 25 health professionals working in rural and remote CMH services in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, for NSW Health participated in in-depth, semi-structured interviews.

The study identified five work-related challenges negatively affecting job satisfaction: developing a profession-specific identity; providing quality multidisciplinary care; working in a resource-constrained service environment; working with a demanding client group; and managing personal and professional boundaries.

These findings highlight the need to provide time-critical supports to address the challenges facing rural-based CMH professionals in their early career years in order to maximise job satisfaction and reduce avoidable turnover.

Overall, the study found that the factors negatively affecting the job satisfaction of early career rural-based CMH professionals affects all professionals working in rural CMH, and these negative effects increase with service remoteness. For those in early career, having to simultaneously deal with significant rural health and sector-specific constraints and professional challenges has a negative multiplier effect on their job satisfaction. It is this phenomenon that likely explains the high levels of job dissatisfaction and turnover found among Australia’s rural-based early career CMH professionals. By understanding these multiple and simultaneous pressures on rural-based early career CMH professionals, public health services and governments involved in addressing rural mental health workforce issues will be better able to identify and implement time-critical supports for this cohort of workers. These findings and proposed strategies potentially have relevance beyond Australia’s rural CMH workforce to Australia’s broader early career nursing and allied health rural workforce as well as internationally for other countries that have a similar physical geography and health system.

This essay aims to introduce horizon scanning as an approach fundamental to most foresight studies.

The essay combines a general review of the topic with an overview of a range of horizon‐scanning approaches that are in use in the UK health system.

Different approaches – shorter as well as longer‐term, searching as well as broad scanning – are appropriate in different circumstances. In times of systemic change it is necessary to combine approaches of all types.

Only a small sample of the huge range of horizon‐scanning exercises has been studied, and the essay has not gone far into the question of how horizon‐scanning relates to other elements of the foresight process.

The implication is that horizon‐scanning should be undertaken on a routine basis, and should be integrated into planning activities from the start.

Horizon‐scanning is a tool needed in activities such as planning for the workforce, and for health and safety issues.

The essay covers a wide range of activities with real‐life illustrations in addition to overall assessment.

The aim of this paper is to examine how internal communication of reform objectives to health workforces and stakeholders has influenced the implementation of Ghana's health sector decentralisation at district level.

Data collection involved in‐depth interviews with district public health officials, private health providers, local government officials and health‐related non‐government organisations which had been working in the district for at least two years.

The study's findings showed that communication (the sharing of information) about reform objectives were centralised among the top hierarchy of the District Health Management Teams; and the process of transferring reform information to district health workforces and stakeholders was through a top‐downward approach. This vertical style of communication resulted in limited information getting through to district health workforces tasked with the implementation. This impacted negatively on reform implementation.

The paper reveals that there is a connection between the level of comprehension of the objectives for decentralisation reform both by the health workforce and stakeholders, particularly the expected new roles they are supposed to play. A lack of effective transfer of information affects commitment and ownership of the decentralisation reform at district level; contributing significantly to the poor implementation of the reform programme.