Suchergebnisse

16–19 education is now a major policy issue. Because of its voluntary and specialised character and its importance in determining life chances, educational provision must be informed by some conception of the needs to be satisfied. Research undertaken into ways in which LEAs assess the needs of 16–19 year olds suggests that needs are assessed by a variety of mechanisms which reflect administrative processes and relationships and make an incremental contribution to planning. Needs assessment thereby reflects the nature of educational government, as well as the difficulties in operationalising the concept of need. This approach results in deficiencies and inequalities. The paper concludes by suggesting ways in which needs assessment might be improved within the limitations of the existing ideology.

School governing bodies provide the most common opportunity for citizens to participate in government in this country, but their role is singularly unclear and variable. Their past history shows that lack of clarity is not a recent phenomenon and that they have been used to stress different objectives at different times. The findings from a recent research project investigating the role of governing bodies within the local educational system are drawn on to explain the reasons for this uncertainty which, it is suggested, lie in the structural position governing bodies occupy within local educational systems and in the weakness of the power at their disposal. As a result of these factors, the role of governing bodies varies according to the strength of authority they exercise and the focus of their attention. Finally, it is suggested that one way to provide governing bodies with a more positive role and build upon the strengths of their pluralist nature would be to define their purpose with more precision.

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Original Title Page -- Original Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Introduction the Place of Committees in Policy Making -- 1: Advisory Committees and Their Place in the Government and Education Services -- The Role of Government Committees -- The Committees and Educational Government -- 2: The Origins and Workings of Committees -- Types of Advisory Bodies -- Standing Committees and Councils: Their Emerging Purposes -- The Origins and Workings of the Board of Education Consultative Committee -- The Emergence of the CAC -- The Central Advisory Council for Education -- The Secondary School Examinations Council -- The National Advisory Council on the Training and Supply of Teachers -- Ad Hoc Departmental Committees and Working Parties -- 3: Membership and Methods of Working -- Chairmen -- Members -- The Secretary -- Research and Witnesses -- 4: The Major Councils and Committees, 1920 to 1972: Their Main Themes -- Educational Ideas and Practice -- Selectivity -- Education and Social Opportunity -- Educational Governance -- Trofessionalism -- 5: Four Major Reports -- The First Hadow Report-Education of the Adolescent -1926 -- The Percy Report-Higher Technological Education -1945 -- The Crowther Report-Fifteen to Eighteen-1959 -- The Plowden Report-Children and Their Primary Schools-1967 -- 6: The Future of Advisory Systems -- Impact -- The Main Policies -- Their Place in Educational Government -- Appendix 1: Cost and Production Time of Reports -- Appendix 2: Membership of Certain Committees -- Further Reading -- Sources.

The most appropriate criteria and the best approach for evaluating centres concerned with research into health and health services, are matters of academic and policy debate. There is interest in assessing the impact made by research on policy and practice as well as using more traditional peer review of the knowledge produced. In this context the article describes the development of a multidimensional categorization of benefits, or payback, from research and development (R&D) and a model for conducting evaluations of impact. This categorization and model were used during an assessment of two R&D centres funded by a regional office of the National Health Service in the UK. The acceptability of such an approach is discussed in the light of relevant proposals from other authors, changes in the nature of knowledge production and the consequent role of multiple stakeholders.

English
Business pocess re-engineering (BPR) is one of the latest approaches to improving organisational performance. It evolved in the US private sector, and has been introduced to Britain and the British public sector, offering radical improvement from radical redesign. This article considers the nature of BPR (and there is more than one variety) and the suitability of its application to the public sector in general and to hospitals in particular. The authors then evaluate the experience and impact of BPR in a London hospital trust. The article concludes by highlighting factors that help to explain the particular example of BPR and draws out some implications for its wider use in the public sector.

ABSTRACTAs part of the 1989 NHS Review, the government made participation in audit compulsory for the medical profession. Prior to this time, medical audit had been fragmented, implemented by "top‐down"initiatives promoted by professional bodies as well as by localized "bottom‐up"exercises undertaken by committed individuals. The paper uses evidence gained from four case studies of the implementation of medical audit in acute hospitals post 1989, to argue that during the early stages of policy implementation individualistic tendencies have, to some extent inadvertently, been given their head. This has not resulted in stronger external management of medical activities, as the government appeared initially to intend, but rather in locally determined medical audit activity, focused on technical process and medical management. However examining medical audit in the wider context of the total package of NHS reforms and of concurrent changes in medical management, suggests that medical interests, and the individualism that is characteristic of medical organization, will become diluted and less segregated in the future.

In policy terms Resource Management (RM) is something of an exception. At a time when the government has attracted criticism both for the substance of its health service policies and for its reluctance to proceed by formal experiment, RM has attracted widespread (if guarded) support and has been the subject of a three year experiment. This paper, which is based upon an interim evaluation of the RM experiments in acute hospitals in England, examines the nature of RM. lt is suggested that its origin shows the influence of a number of distinct strands that appeal to different constituencies within the health service. Each of these strands presents its own specific characteristics and issues as RM is implemented. These are considered in turn before suggesting that RM can usefully be thought of as a management process that combines and integrates the different strands. The paper concludes by examining how the changes associated with introducing RM are being handled and why the process of change is taking longer than first thought.