Motorcycle safety research project interim report 2 : review of the Consistent Assessment Process (CAP)

Motorcycle trauma is a serious road safety issue in Queensland and throughout Australia. In 2009, Queensland Transport (later Transport and Main Roads or TMR) appointed CARRS-Q to provide a three-year program of Road Safety Research Services for Motorcycle Rider Safety. Funding for this research originated from the Motor Accident Insurance Commission. This program of research was undertaken to produce knowledge to assist TMR to improve motorcycle safety by further strengthening the licensing and training system to make learner riders safer by developing a pre-learner package (Deliverable 1), and by evaluating the Q-Ride CAP program to ensure that it is maximally effective and contributes to the best possible training for new riders (Deliverable 2), which is the focus of this report. Deliverable 3 of the program identified potential new licensing components that will reduce the incidence of risky riding and improve higher-order cognitive skills in new riders. This report provides a summary of Deliverables 2.1 through to 2.4

Safeguarding in schools : best practice

"This report illustrates and evaluates the features of best practice in safeguarding, based on inspection evidence from the 19% of all maintained primary, secondary and special schools, residential special schools and pupil referral units inspected between September 2009 and July 2010 where safeguarding had been judged outstanding. It also draws on a more detailed analysis and evaluation of safeguarding practice in a small sample of outstanding schools visited by Her Majesty’s Inspectors" -- front cover

Weighing the Public Interest

In 1981, the AICPA addressed the issue of going concern status through SAS 34, The Auditor\u27s Considerations When a Question Arises About an Entity\u27s Continued Existence. In 1988, the AICPA issued SAS 59, The Auditor\u27s Consideration of an Entity\u27s Ability to Continue as a Going Concern, which remains the authoritative guidance. To determine if additional guidance on the topic of going concern is provided by accounting organizations, the authors contacted the AICPA and the state CPA societies. The authors found that none of these organizations provide additional literature or guidance in this area. Several individuals have criticized the current literature and called for additional guidance in the area of going concern. The authors believe that the Commission on Auditors\u27 Responsibilities\u27 recommendations for improving and specifying the responsibilities of independent auditors should be revisited and the going concern opinion should be eliminated. Considering that litigation is not a serious threat, one can see that eliminating the going concern opinion is the favorable option

The Costs of Favoritism: Is Politically-driven Aid less Effective?

As is now well documented, aid is given for both political as well as economic reasons. The conventional wisdom is that politically-motivated aid is less effective in promoting developmental objectives. We examine the ex-post performance ratings of World Bank projects and generally find that projects that are potentially politically motivated – such as those granted to governments holding a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council or an Executive Directorship at the World Bank – are no more likely, on average, to get a negative quality rating than other projects. When aid is given to Security Council members with higher short-term debt, however, a negative quality rating is more likely. So we find evidence that World Bank project quality suffers as a consequence of political influence only when the recipient country is economically vulnerable in the first place.World Bank, aid effectiveness, political influence, United Nations Security Council

The commodification of security in the risk society

Expanding on the works of Beck and others on the growing business of risk, this paper examines the role of private industry in the creation, management and perpetuation of the world risk society. It observes that the replacement of the concept of security with risk over the past decades has permitted private firms to identify a growing range of unknown and unknown-unknown dangers which cannot be eliminated and require continuous risk management. Using the discourse of risk and its strategies of commercialized, individualized and reactive risk management, the private risk industry has thus contributed to the rise of a world risk society in which the demand for security can never be satisfied and so guarantees continuous profits