Showing papers on "White paper published in 1988"

Family doctors and innovation in general practice

Abstract: Family doctors have been presented with changes in government policies and incentives in a recent white paper on primary care. Little work has been done, however, to find out how general practitioners respond to such measures. The response of general practitioners to professional and economic incentives was examined in relation to the location of the practice and the characteristics of the practitioners in seven different areas of England. The areas represented urban, rural, affluent, and deprived communities. The overall response rate was 74%, but the response varied among the areas, being poorest (64%) in an inner city area. Practices were subdivided as innovative, traditional, or intermediate, according to whether they employed a nurse and participated in the cost rent scheme and the vocational training scheme. Innovative practices were defined as fulfilling two of these criteria and traditional practices as fulfilling none; the remainder were classed as intermediate. The results showed that these three types of practice had distinct strategies that were related to financial constraints and the local population. Innovative practices had more partners and were often located in rural or affluent suburban areas; traditional practices had fewer partners and were more common in urban and working class areas. Innovative practices seemed to be in the best position to increase their services, and hence their incomes, in response to the recent proposals in the white paper. Practices in areas of developmental difficulty (predominantly urban but not necessarily inner city areas) had been less able to respond to existing incentives and had a smaller margin available for developing their services. In view of the effect of local constraints of economics and population on the strategy of practices, concentrating resources for primary care in local budgets for working class and urban areas may be preferable to extending the system of charging fees for services provided by family doctors.

Keynes, The Treasury and British Economic Policy

Abstract: Introduction - The Return to Gold and After - Public Works as an Employment Policy - Towards a Managed Economy? - How to Pay for the War - The 1944 White Paper on Employment Policy - A 'Keynesian Revolution? - Appendix: Dramatis Personae - Notes - Select Bibliography - Index

British budgetary policy 1945-1954: a‘Keynesian revolution’?

Abstract: 'Keynesian revolution' occurred in economic policy-making in the postwar period.2 This article, which is based largely on Public Record Office material, concentrates on the role of budgetary policy, upon which the debate has centred. In some ways this is doubly paradoxical: firstly, that it is through the study of the control of inflation rather than the alleviation of unemployment that some understanding can be gained of the reasons for the introduction of demand management; and secondly that it was budgetary policy, which received little consideration in either Keynes's General theory of employment, interest and money or the I944 White Paper on Employment policy, that came to be seen as central to the use of demand management in practice. This debate on the role of budgetary policy has only come to the fore in the last few years as attention has shifted away from consideration of an intellectual 'Keynesian revolution'. Attention has now come to focus on attitudes in Whitehall and the actual implementation of demand management, but it is necessary to separate these two aspects, especially as there has been a tendency to confuse them. With this in mind, it should then be possible to assess Treasury acceptance of demand management and the extent to which demand management, via the budget, was introduced into counter-inflationary policy. It will be argued that Treasury acceptance was not whole-hearted, that willingness to use budget surpluses did not necessarily imply an equal acceptance of deficit financing, and, with regard to implementation, that this was a gradual process, which makes the selection of a particular date an almost worthless exercise.

Federalism and nigeria's political future: a comment

Abstract: GIVEN THE LEGACY of conflict engendered by the competition for resources 'between ethnically-defined constituencies'1 in Nigeria, it is not surprising that a great deal of the debate concerning the country's political future has resolved around the requisites for an equitable federal system. Larry Diamond's splendid essay in the April 1987 number of the Zournal addresses quite a number of the prominent themes in this debate2 and my aim in this comment is to elaborate on some of them by exploring their key dimensions. The release of the Federal Government's White Paper on the Report of the Political Bureau appointed to coordinate a debate on Nigeria's future politics,3 simultaneously with the announcement, on 1 July 1987, of the guidelines for transition to civilian rule4 will also enable me to discuss some of the choices that have already been made regarding Nigeria's federalism in the Third Republic.

Policy Review Section

Abstract: Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) were announced in the December 1988 White Paper Employment Policy for the 1990s and launched by the Prime Minister in March 1989. The Policy Review Section of the previous issue of Regional Studies set out the wider economic development background to the development of TECs. The first TECs were launched in 1989. They are a major government initiative to turn over to private sector led councils a number of major Training Agency programmes, such as Youth Training (YTS) and Employment Training (ET), to give major new local flexibility to areas to fine-tune training provision to needs and, in the longer term, also to co-ordinate with many existing business-education links. In Scotland, the TECs will also include many of the existing functions of the Scottish Development Agency. An LSE team has been monitoring how TECs are developing and the problems they will encounter. Their results were presented at a conference at LSE on 20 April 1989 of 180 participants convened by ...

Labour and the Origins of the National Health Service

Abstract: As a consequence of a recent flurry of research initiatives, the early history of the National Health Service has been charted in meticulous detail.1 Notwithstanding increasing availability of documentation in the public records, or greater elaboration of the narrative, interpretations have remained remarkably consistent with the classic study produced by Eckstein in 1958. Eckstein’s authority has been further enhanced by Addison’s account of the wartime background to the welfare legislation of the 1945–51 Labour administration.2

Higher education — the future

Abstract: Higher education is crucial to help our nation meet the economic, social and intellectual challenges of the final decade of this century. We must ensure that our universities, polytechnics and colleges respond to the country's requirements. Important reforms are already under way; I pay tribute to the efforts that are being made, especially in our universities, to adapt themselves more closely to the needs of the nation. The White Paper announces new policies in three key areas:

Literature Review: The Efficiency and Performance Assessment Debate

Abstract: Mention assessment to social work teachers or practitioners and they are likely to think either of the process carried out in the early stages of work with clients or of the evaluation of a student's performance. Increasingly for staff in higher education, however, the term is becoming associated also with the appraisal of their own performance and the performance of their department and institution. This development in the universities received a major stimulus from the Jarrett Report (Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals, 1985), it has been carried forward in work by the University Grants Committee (UGC) and the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) (1987) and it is given force by a government reportedly keen to strengthen the link between performance and funding (Times Higher Education Supplement (THES), 6 November 1987). The concept of performance assessment and the related concern with efficiency have not emerged solely in the universities, of course; they can be found in almost every public service. For social workers and social work teachers who have yet to encounter these developments directly, it seems likely to be only a matter of time. The subject is proving to be highly contentious. While there may be details that appear significant only to a narrow sector, and while we should not assume that issues of accountability are identical across the public sector (Day and Klein, 1987), a good deal of the growing debate affecting the universities is relevant to other sectors of the higher education system (White Paper, 1987) and indeed to other spheres of public service where professional work is conducted, including social work. There are some aspects of this debate that social workers will be interested in because they are themselves connected or concerned with the education system and its students. Other aspects will serve as information on issues with which social workers may at some time become directly involved in their own agencies. © Oxford University Press 1988

Trends in Canadian Security Policy And Commitments

Abstract: Canadian governments actively promoted the creation of NATO and demonstrated commitment to an Atlanticist security orientation throughout the Alliance's formative years. The goal of ensuring ongoing yet constrained American engagement in European security affairs obviously accounted for this early Canadian support for the North Atlantic concept. But there were composite motives at play, including a predisposition for multilateralism over an exclusively bilateral security relationship with the country's North American ally and guarantor. The consummate irony, of course, is that Canadian security policy since at least the mid-1960s has contributed to the undermining of the very principles on which the country's Alliance membership was founded. Thus, the muchdiscussed commitment-capability gap in Canadian defense policy constitutes but a surface manifestation of a basic misreading of intra-Alliance political and military linkages that has now persisted for more than two decades. The 1987 White Paper has intr...

The United Kingdom and Australia: new titles.

Abstract: The United Kingdom and Australia: New Titles The last few years have seen an upsurge of interest in medical ethics outside North America, where the subject is already well established In 1987, a number of significant publications, reflected this change In Britain, a Working Party from the Institute of Medical Ethics produced the "Pond Report" on undergraduate teaching of medical ethics in medical schools [1] This authoritative document has been widely read and discussed and, although the standards of ethics courses very widely among medical schools, they are now at least accepted as a formal part of the curriculum These and other initiatives, notably the development of three postgraduate masters degree programs, are described in a symposium on teaching medical ethics teatured in the autumn issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics [2] In November the British government published a long-awaited white paper on "Human Fertilisation and Embryology: A Framework for Legislation," following the Warnock Report published in 1984 [3] This document, which willform the basis for a new bill following debate in Parliament, contains two main sets of proposals The first concerns an independent Statutory Licensing Authority to be set up to control certain types of treatment for infertility where serious ethical issues arise, and human embryo research if it is decided that such research should be made lawful The second concerns surrogacy; it is proposed that no surrogacy contract should be legally enforceable, although criminal sanctions will not apply to private surrogacy contracts This document heralds the first wide-ranging piece of legislation in this area in Britain The British Medical Association's recent report on euthanasia will be widely considered in Britain and abroad although it contains little that is new and fails to deal satisfactorily with many of the issues that trouble doctors and patients [4] It considers active euthanasia wrong both morally and legally, but does not present the arguments coherently and dispassionately Indeed, ethical reasoning seems to be introduced to support particular positions already held Much of the problem may have arisen because the membership of the working party was composed entirely of medical professionals (apart from observers); this serves to warn even the most prestigious groups working in medical ethics against having too narrow a composition We can hope that the failure of this report to provide a lead in this contentious area will prove a stimulus to others in tackling the questions that remain unresolved In Australia, a major new international journal, Bioethics, was launched in 1987, edited by Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer It was a year in which the moral issues related to AIDS reached a new height of prominence, so it is not surprising that Bioethics contained two articles on the subject in its first volume One of them, a review of the ethical and practical issues, came from Finland and revealed the depth of terror the subject engenders [5] In an otherwise sober and analytic account, as would be expected from philosophers, the authors conclude with what would be regarded as a hysterical statement in almost any other context: "Nuclear holocaust, the main source of fear among people today, will tomorrow look like the only peaceful way out of our misery if governments do not care to stop the triumphant march of AIDS now" Another significant development is the increasing number of articles on ethical issues appearing in a wide range of nonspecialist journals …

The Elderly Today. 1: An Economic Audit

Abstract: This chapter is concerned with economic aspects of policies for the care of the elderly. One of the major objectives of these policies was set out recently in a Government White Paper (Department of Health and Social Security, 1981, para. 2.1, p. 6) as follows: The aim of the Government’s policy is to enable elderly people to live independent lives in their own homes wherever possible — which reflects what the majority themselves want. If this is to be achieved, people will need an income sufficient to provide a reasonable standard of living and to enable them to take part in the life of the community. The key to this lies in a basic retirement pension at a satisfactory level, the maturing of earnings-related State and occupational pensions, and any savings or insurance which people may have. In addition, practical help and the provision of care can provide extra support.

Restored to life.

Abstract: More than a decade ago the Government produced a White Paper, 'Better Services for the Mentally III', recommending that each district health authority should provide a comprehensive range of local services to meet the mental health needs of the population for which it had responsibility.

The Contribution of Higher Education to GRIST — Meeting the Challenge of the White Paper

Abstract: (1988). The Contribution of Higher Education to GRIST — Meeting the Challenge of the White Paper. British Journal of In-Service Education: Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 100-104.

The 1988 White Paper on Higher Education.

Abstract: • an increased exploitation of the dependence of higher education on Commonwealth funds to' give the Minister power to impose conditions on the size of institutions, their education programs, important areas of internal management, staffing arrangements, qedit transfers and equity programs for membership of the 'unified national system'; • transfer of responsibility for 'program delivery and management' from CTEC to the Department of Employment, Education and Training . (DEET), and the creation of a National Board of Employment, Education and Training (NBEET) with only a small staff provided by DEET to assist it with its advisory responsibilities; • the abolition of ' the binary system', though in fact the abolition of a ternary system in favour of a binary system of higher education and technical and further education; • a reduction in general recurrent grants for 'teaching and research' in universities to increase funds for research which the Minister will allocate on the advice of the new Australian Research Council; • from 1989, 1'10 of annual base operating grants to go to a Reserve Fund to. be distributed on the basis of institutions' 'responses to specific Commonwealth initiatives or the identified areas of national priority'; • the creation of Commonwealth and State Joint Planning Committees for consultations on higher education policy and developments in the States 'consistent with the Commonwealth's wider community involvement in public institutions' (p.103); and • pressure on the governing bodies of the higher education institutions to delegate clear responsibility and authority to their chief executive officers 'to implement agreements reached with the Commonwealth and to hold them responsible for that implementation' while ensuring 'adequate levels of consultation with and responsibility to Government, employers, -students and the community' (p.103). [n view of the great increase in the role of DEET, the quality of this White Paper has a special significance. The apparent reasons for change

Rent control: is history repeating itself?

Abstract: At the turn of the century, over 90% of all the housing in Britain was rented by private landlords; the figure is now under 10%. The government hopes to change all that. According to the White Paper on housing policy, they "will put new life into the independent rented sector. The letting of private property will again become an economic proposition." They are going to do this by removing most of the controls on new lettings.