Search results

The government has indicated that it wishes to abolish wages councils. So long as the UK ratifies the International Labour Organisation Convention, it is committed to the maintenance of low pay machinery in poorly paid industries, but it could deratify and abolition could take place in 1986. The two retail councils are the largest of the wages councils. Nobody pretends they function effectively. Small retailers claim that they cannot afford the minimum rates fixed by the councils, while some large companies assert that the council's recommended increases have a knock‐on effect on their own collective bargaining arrangements. But in spite of the increases in recent years, the current highest minimum rate in retailing is still 18% below what the Council of Europe described in 1983 as the “decency threshold”. If the councils are to be retained, clearly reform is needed. There is evidence of an alarming level of underpayment, and the “policing” system faces acute difficulties — not least a reduction of one‐third in the number of inspectors. In this special feature, Susan Shaw examines the arguments for abolition, retention, or reform.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to evaluate if the environment of the State 4-H Council fosters transfer of training to life after the 4-H program. Purposive sampling identified former members of a State 4-H Council. The research methods included semi-structured and unstructured interviews. Major findings of the study noted that most areas of the council environment encourage the transfer of training, however, some facets of the council environment need improvement to promote training transfer. Recommendations include conducting a needs assessment of all incoming State 4-H Council members, developing an experiential training method, implementing training on working with different personality types, improving communication among the group, and continuing to reward council members for using the skills they gain while on the council.

Town councils are a new concept, first established in 1988 to ensure the proper management and maintenance of public housing developments in Singapore. Some seven years have passed since the operation of town councils. This paper attempts to assess the role of town councils, their powers and responsibilities in terms of maintenance management, and how they can serve as important tools for fostering a sense of identity and community bonding among residents in public housing estates. A survey on the assessment of the performance of a typical town council is also discussed.

This paper reports on the design of an attitude scale to be used in studies investigating relationships between principals and members of school councils in Victoria. The scale, which is composed of twenty‐four items, measures attitudes toward principal domination of council. The Likert method of scale construction was used. Item analysis demonstrated that all items discriminated between high and low scorers (Edwards t≥3.17). Internal consistency, estimated by using Kuder Richardson and Cronback's Alpha, yielded a coefficient of .80705. The corrected split‐half reliability based on the responses of 297 principals and council members was .72835. Test‐retest reliability was .69314.

The Local Government Act 1985 provided for the abolition of the Greater London Council and the six Metropolitan County Councils on 1st April, 1986. The Act deals with the transfer of those functions currently exercised by the Greater London Council and the Metropolitan County Councils to existing authorities namely the Local Council of each London Borough and Metropolitan District.

The Government's proposals for the regulation of social care services are set out in the Social Services White Paper. They include changes to the inspection of services, the abolition of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work and the establishment of a new statutory body, the General Social Care Council (GSCC), to be responsible for regulating conduct and practice standards for all who work in social care. This article describes the background to the proposed general council and its links to training and service regulation, outlines the Government's approach to setting and enforcing standards, and suggests ways in which the general council will affect those who use and work in learning disability services.

The marginalisation of council housing in Britain since the Housing Act of 1980 threatens to obscure some of the very valuable lessons to be learned from almost a century of mass public housing provision. This chapter demonstrates that despite considerable economic problems, and in the face of social change since 1980, a relatively poor council estate remained a site of social capital, and that women were particularly prominent in working with local agencies to solve problems.

Using data from the 2013 European Company Survey, this chapter operationalizes the representation gap as the desire for greater employee involvement in decision-making expressed by the representative of the leading employee representative body at the workplace. According to this measure, there is evidence of a substantial shortfall in employee involvement in the European Union, not dissimilar to that reported for the United States. The chapter proceeds to investigate how the size of this representation gap varies by type of representative structure, information provided by management, the resource base available to the representatives, and the status of trust between the parties. Perceived deficits are found to be smaller where workplace representation is via works councils rather than union bodies. Furthermore, the desire for greater involvement is reduced where information provided the employee representative on a range of establishment issues is judged satisfactory. A higher frequency of meetings with management also appears to mitigate the expressed desire for greater involvement. Each of these results is robust to estimation over different country clusters. However, unlike the other arguments, the conclusion that shortfalls in employee involvement representation are smaller under works councils than union bodies is nullified where trust in management is lacking.

Purpose – In recent years, various communities across Canada have recognized the need to include young people's input in community/urban decision-making processes. As a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Canadian governments and policy makers are obligated to take young people's views into consideration when decisions about them are made. The aim of this chapter is to examine how some communities have attempted to involve young people in such decision making by creating youth advisory councils.Design/methodology/approach – This chapter draws on an open-ended small-scale survey conducted with youth council members and adults familiar with the operation of youth councils.Findings – The findings suggest that many youth councils were mostly initiated by adults for youth. However, the successes of these youth councils were many. Participants reported that youth councils provided young people with a voice on an array of issues ranging in scope from local to national/international. Despite these successes, the ability of young people to have a voice in decisions that affected them was hindered by the many challenges that youth councils faced (e.g., lack of adult support).Originality/value – This chapter provides strategies to help overcome barriers to genuine youth participation in the decision-making processes of communities/cities. It also critically engages with the concept of participation as it relates to youth councils as an avenue for enhancing young people's civic and political lives. Finally, it adds to the literature by examining the Canadian context which has often been overlooked in research on youth councils.

This chapter aims to determine the extent of stakeholder engagement in the sustainability accounting and reporting process in three Australian local councils. The frameworks of Arnstein (1969) and Friedman and Miles (2006) and the case study methodology are used to assess the stakeholder engagement practices of three best practice Australian local councils. The findings highlight the existence of five levels of stakeholder engagement ranging from informing to empowering. However, the extent of stakeholder engagement varied depending on the nature and purpose of engagement. This study adds to the limited literature on stakeholder engagement in sustainability accounting and reporting, especially in a public sector context. This study provides practical insights into engagement with stakeholders and is useful to both organizations and their stakeholders. Although focused on a public sector and Australian context, the findings of this study have implications for stakeholder engagement in various local and global contexts.