Managing escalating demand for public services in a time of financial austerity: a case study of family interventions

The UK (along with many other countries) is facing the challenges of financial austerity with little or no growth in public funding for the foreseeable future. This creates particular challenges for public services as economic downturns often increase the demand for public services at a time when resources are constrained. A particular service of this type is the provision of support to ‘troubled’ families through what are termed family interventions, in one local authority area, and the impact of financial austerity on those services. It considers the strategic options available for dealing with the dilemma of increasing demand and declining resources, and assesses the implications of implementing these options. It also considers the key factors which inhibit the development and implementation of such approaches, in order to provide a starting point for developing a practical strategy for dealing with the challenges ahead. Finally, it considers how the findings related to family interventions can be applied to other services in a similar situation of increasing demand and decreasing resources

Occasional Paper 13 - What role do maintained nursery schools play in Early Years sector improvements?

The thing that really concerns me is that once MNSs have gone, that level of expertise and social service will also. It seems that there’s a sort of double quality to the MNS, which is constantly evolving, high level pedagogy and providing areas of expertise, like special needs, and so on. But also support for the family. There's very specific expertise that's going to go to waste… (Leader of a Maintained Nursery School

Inter-municipal cooperation and austerity policies: obstacles or opportunities?

The profound challenges experienced by European countries as a consequence of the fiscal crisis, combined with the increase in the scope, size, and diversity of inter-municipal cooperation (IMC), justify a closer look at whether and how austerity policies have shaped the developments of IMC across different countries. Has IMC become more prevalent in countries affected by the fiscal crisis? Have austerity policies presented obstacles or opportunities for IMC initiatives? We conducted a survey of experts in 11 selected countries, including both countries that were hit hard by the fiscal crisis and implemented extensive austerity policies and countries where IMC is known to be or becoming prevalent. The results of this exploratory analysis indicate that in five of the countries included in our sample (Italy, Portugal, Iceland, the Netherlands, and the UK), IMC has emerged as a solution to deal better with fiscal stress

Influencing public awareness to prevent male suicide

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report findings from a formative evaluation of a suicide prevention public awareness campaign – Choose Life, North Lanarkshire. The focus is on preventing male suicide. The paper explores how the public campaign supports a co-ordinated and community-based direction for suicide prevention work, and examines how good practice can be identified, spread, and sustained. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on data collected from March to November 2011, using mixed primary research methods, including a quota survey, discussion groups with the general public, and stakeholder interviews. Findings – The campaign effectively raised the suicide awareness of a substantial proportion of those targeted, but with regional variations. It also affected the attitudes and behaviour of those who were highly aware. However, men and women engaged somewhat differently with the campaign. The sports and leisure settings approach was effective in reaching younger men. Practical implications – The paper discusses emerging considerations for suicide prevention, focusing on gender and approaches and materials for engaging with the public as “influencers”. There are challenges to target audiences more specifically, provide a clear call to action, and engage the public in a sustained way. Originality/value – This paper reflects on insights from a complex programme, exceptional in its focus on targeted sections of the public, especially young males. The paper indicates the importance for research and practice of intersecting dimensions of male identity, stigma and mental health, and other risk and protective factors which can inform campaigns highlighting talk about suicide among men

Beyond the ‘wow factor’? Climate resilient green infrastructure for people and wildlife

Covid-19 and COP26 both amplified calls from the environment sector for greater support for greenspace management globally. As the future of our planet and population is threatened by a global pandemic, escalating mental health challenges and the interrelated climate and biodiversity crises, there is a growing awareness of the potential for the intersecting roles of greenspace (GS), green infrastructure (GI) and nature-based solutions (NBS) to meet the myriad socio-economic and ecological of modern society (Frantzeskaki, 2019; Venkataramanan et al., 2020). Unfortunately, their potential to address these challenges remains undervalued by many, and thus underfunded, (Mell, 2021). Presenting examples of ‘research into action’, we advocate greenspace management to maximise benefits for people and wildlife. We draw on research from UK to consider how and why different people react to landscapes of varying aesthetic and biodiversity quality (Hoyle et al. 2017a), proposing an alternative approach to biodiversity-friendly greenspace management under austerity. Next, we emphasise the urgency of ‘futureproofing’ places to adapt to changing climate, demonstrating the public acceptability of climate-ready urban GI (Hoyle, 2021). Finally, we discuss how socio-cultural variables and values impact on preferences. We illustrate the benefits of co-creating local NBS with reference to ‘Futureproofing Luton’, a live project engaging diverse partners in the co-production of an educational arboretum-meadow. We propose alternative options open to all natural and built environment and public health professionals to support knowledge exchange promoting more sustainable forms of urban development. Although framed within a UK context, the processes of engagement, best practice exchange, and more effective dialogue, are meaningful across Europe and beyond

Cooperative Longevity and Sustainable Development in a Family Farming System

This paper focuses on small holding, family farming in Southeast Spain where agricultural economic activity is predominantly organized around cooperative business models. A variety of diverse studies on the Almería agricultural and credit cooperative sector and the exploration of social-economic and eco-social indicators, in addition to economic-market indicators are presented. Each correspond to a cooperative “logic” that spans theoretical perspectives from the dominant economic-market model, new institutionalism, and an eco-social approach, echoing theories on collective coordination governance, and the avoidance of the “tragedy of the commons”. The latter is of particular importance given environmental challenges and scarce resources for agricultural activity. The cooperatives in Almería have increasingly relied on collective collaboration and coordination in order to meet social-economic and social-ecological challenges, transforming their role from that founded on a market dominant logic to that of cooperation as a coordination mechanism based on the mutual benefit of the community and environment. In turn, their ability to meet a wide range of needs and challenges of members and the community leads to their longevity. Cooperatives are able to act as both a market and non-market coordination mechanism, balancing the economic, social, and environmental dimensions, such that neither market nor non-market logics are dominant or exclusive

Theatre & Performance, Crisis & Survival

In this introduction, guest editor Kim Solga reflects on the origins of the issue, details its scope, offers grounding definitions of ‘neoliberalism’ and ‘the neoliberal university’, and charts one possible way forward, in hope

Introducing Change in Public Service Organizations under Austerity: The Complex Case of the Governance of the Defence in the United Kingdom

Introducing, managing, and sustaining change in public service organizations is challenging for policy makers to implement and for scholars to theorize. In 2010, the U.K. Government introduced policy changes to help bring down the national deficit. The executive's planned reforms aimed to deliver a so‐called battle‐winning military force, a smaller and more professional Ministry of Defence, and an affordable overall defence organization. The article borrows from theories of management and public policy to help enlighten our understanding of change under New Public Management and governance approaches. The article's central claim is that the U.K. Government sought to correct cost‐efficiency processes in public service organizations trying to reshape organizational and managerial structures dependent on many internal and external pressures. The article examines the executive's purpose in developing a need for change and the ways to implement it. I question whether the U.K. Government's prescriptive and hierarchical approach to organizational change in public administration is sustainable in the long term

Welfare states and environmental states: a comparative analysis

A framework is presented for thinking about state intervention in developed capitalist economies in two domains: social policy and environmental policy (and, within that, climate-change policy). Five drivers of welfare state development are identified, the ‘five Is’ of Industrialisation: Interests, Institutions, Ideas/Ideologies, and International Influences. Research applying this framework to the postwar development of welfare states in the OECD is summarised, distinguishing two periods: up to 1980, and from 1980 to 2008. How far this framework can contribute to understanding the rise and differential patterns of environmental governance and intervention across advanced capitalist states since 1970 is explored, before briefly comparing and contrasting the determinants of welfare states and environmental states, identifying common drivers in both domains and regime-specific drivers in each. The same framework is then applied to developments since 2008 and into the near future, sketching two potential configurations and speculating on the conditions for closer, more integrated ‘eco-welfare states’

On the edge: David Cameron’s EU renegotiation strategies

After promising the British public a referendum on whether to stay in the EU, David Cameron is currently trying to renegotiate the terms of the UK’s membership. His increasingly Eurosceptical party and a press that is often hostile towards the European Union makes the task a particularly challenging one. In this series of five essays, Frank Vibert, a Senior Visiting Fellow in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science, draws on his experience as a founder director of the European Policy Forum to analyse the five strands of Cameron’s renegotiation strategy. He concludes that – if he succeeds - the Prime Minister’s approach may lead member states and Brussels institutions to move away from their current strategy of stressing EU citizens’ rights, rather than their consent