The development of competition in the English and Welsh water and sewerage industry .

This paper examines the introduction of competition into the English and Welsh water and sewerage industry following privatisation of the 10 regional water authorities in 1989. It outlines the development of comparative, capital and product market competition, arguing that the greatest opportunities now lie with the last through the introduction of common carriage agreements, the extension of Inset appointments and the introduction of transferable abstraction licences. Despite competitive innovations, the industry remains highly regulated, complex and difficult to enter. One of Ofwat’s outstanding challenges for the next decade is to examine the means by which the regulatory burden might be lightened and barriers to entry lowered, to encourage potential entrants to compete with incumbents.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES; A COUNTRY’S ASSET, A CORPORATION’S LIABILITY, THE FALLACY OF EQUALITY, AND THE FUTURE

This paper will discuss three issues regarding the development of human resources, using Australia and The United States of America (USA) as case examples. The first issue is that corporations and governments have incompatible views of humans as a resource. A corporation views its employees as potential and/or current liabilities and will often employ the least amount of people, at the lowest pay rate as possible. Incongruently, a government (theoretically) views its citizens as potential assets who, when working, could be taxable (plus other contributions to society). Thus, governments have attempted to create equal employment opportunities through educational outcomes. However, despite policies ensuring “No Child [is] Left Behind” inequality keeps rising. Thus, the second issue discussed in this paper is “equality” as a fallacy; in addition to the subconscious biases affecting a person’s chance of employment, there are people with physical disabilities, or those who simply do not have the intellectual prowess to compete with the brightest kids in school. The continued pretence that every citizen has equal employment opportunities has in fact “left people behind”. Which brings us to the third issue – the future; if people are already being left behind, how will the predicted automation take-over affect society? Can society transition in time? Governments need to start envisioning the future and implement appropriate policies as soon as possible. Of course, “Rome was not built in a day”. Still, Rome burnt down in less than a week; let’s hope the current world leaders are nothing like Nero

Diagnosing crop and pasture problems with Detective Doug

There are numerous publications for diagnosing crop and pasture growth problems. Although they are excellent for experienced people, they can be time consuming and possibly misleading for the less experienced. Many guidebooks assume that the user has already decided that their problem falls into the category covered by their particular guidebook, for example, a disease, pest or herbicide problem. Guidebooks are often based on plant symptoms. However, in the field, symptoms vary and different problems can have similar symptoms. This bulletin presents a problem diagnosis method that uses plant symptoms and paddock clues. It can be used to draw up a short list of possible causes of an observed problem. Specialist decision aids can then be used to establish definitive causes. It has been presented for many years in training courses with the title Detective Doug.https://researchlibrary.agric.wa.gov.au/bulletins/1205/thumbnail.jp

Reimagining an employment program for migrant women: From holistic classroom practice to arts-informed program evaluation

This dissertation explores how arts-informed program evaluation contributes to the understanding of an employment program, which was reimagined holistically, for women with immigrant and refugee experience who face barriers entering the Canadian workplace. My practitioner inquiry focuses on a program I managed at an urban community college in partnership with a local community organization. The program supports the development not only of job skills, and English language and literacy, but of social identities that can contribute to success in the search for employment. The decision to launch a women-only program allowed me to surface the experiences and additional burdens conventionally carried by women—for instance, the challenge of childcare as well as periods of absence from the workforce. I used collage-making workshops to learn how these women experienced the program in order to gather knowledge that does not come into focus in the usual standardized evaluation forms or surveys. These arts-informed evaluations enabled students to reflect on the possibilities that the program had afforded them. Informed by theories of social capital and imagined communities and futures, my analysis of their stories showed me that a caring, localized context was paramount for learning. As a practitioner-researcher collaborating with an inquiry community of researchers and drawing on multiple sources of observational, group, and interview data, I was able to explore how, for these migrant women, investment in language and literacy learning in an employment program contributes to the development of confidence, identity, and social relationships, which enables them to overcome barriers. I also argue that a broadened access to an imagined community and imagined future opened up possibilities for the women, which impacted positively on their investment in language learning and their social identity as employable but also as mothers, citizens and community members