Sub-National Governance in England

This discussion is concerned with sub-national governance in England. It will suggest that the most striking characteristic of English sub-national governance is its fragmentary and incoherent nature, embracing regions (if they can still be said to exist), city-regions (which are subject to a number of different definitions) and local government (which itself is sub-divided from place to place into metropolitan, non-metropolitan, unitary and two-tier systems, with a range of differing political management arrangements). This pattern of sub-national provision has grown ever-more varied, subject to ad hoc initiatives, and with no overall rationale. It will be argued that - in contrast to other parts of the United Kingdom - there is currently no political incentive to address the nature of English sub-national governance. Hence there is little likelihood that the pattern of governance depicted here will change, unless new factors are brought into play. Some of these are suggested at the end of this paper

Servo-controlled decoupler eliminates oscillations in fluid flow - A concept

Active control technique, using accelerometer-controlled servovalve to operate a compensating piston, effectively eliminates pressure fluctuations due to longitudinal structural vibration within a relatively long bandwith

Equation relates flow at free jet to flow downstream

Nonlinear equation relates the flowrate at an orifice to that at a station downstream from the orifice. This equation should aid in understanding combustion instabilities and should not be subject to the substantial errors of prior analytical methods

More Than Homework, a Snack, and Basketball: Afterschool Programs as an Oasis of Hope for Black Parents in Four Cities

Highlights the opinions of black families on the quality and importance of public school- and community-based afterschool programs. Explores the factors that influence black parents to enroll their children in afterschool programs

Is Co-Production Possible? Tensions and Opportunities in the Relationship Between Public Sector Practitioners and Academic Providers

The paper explores some of the tensions and dilemmas in the relationship between public sector organisations and academic providers of training and consultancy. Developing the analysis offered by the authors at IRSPM XV, Dublin (Fenwick and McMillan, 2011) the paper considers critical factors in the relationship between client (public organisation) and contractor (higher education provider). This includes specific instances of collaboration, obtained from interviews with HE providers. These illuminate the crucial area of ‘co-production’ of knowledge and learning. It is our proposition that the rhetoric of co-production may bolster the aims of those in the organisation who seek to implement their own agendas for change, or the organisational need of academic providers to achieve their own internal goals, such as financial targets. The instrumental objectives of each party may be addressed through a language of co-production. We do not suggest that the public organisation-HEI relationship thus conceived necessarily generates negative outcomes. On the contrary, there is no doubt that tangible benefits (for both parties) may be produced by such collaborative programmes. But this is not our focus. Our aim is to illuminate the processes that are going on within this, that is, to deconstruct the meaning and practice of co-production and to identify its constituent elements and consequences at a time of unprecedented uncertainty for the public sector