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This paper discusses the contradictions of citizen participation in regeneration. Focusing on the south Wales Valleys, it observes that the creation of the Welsh Assembly in 1999 created a window of opportunity for a radical, bottom–up programme of ‘non-prescriptive’ regeneration, Communities First, which invoked active citizenship to address democratic deficit and economic crisis. Drawing on interview and policy evidence, the analysis shows how the programme became captured by a New Labour policy agenda shifting the priorities from citizen representation to ‘community activation’. This trajectory is interpreted in the light of Jones’ and Ward’s analysis of the ‘crisis of crisis management’, in which the state attempts to offset repeated failures to address economic crisis by a series of political-level ‘fixes’ that in turn create new problems. In the case discussed, these fixes take the form of risk management measures, which the paper discusses using the concepts of the risk society (Beck) and reflexive government (Dean). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing upon analysis of policy documents and interviews with key policy makers and professionals co-ordinating Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) in various settings, this paper interrogates the socio-political drivers underpinning SRE policy and practice with reference to the contemporary Welsh context. In media output in the UK context and beyond, there have been widespread public concerns about the over-sexualization of young girls, sexual grooming and the increasing commercialization of sex. These issues are also significant in Wales, but a different socio-political culture has led to different public pronouncements and a distinctive SRE approach. In this paper, we outline relatively new Welsh Assembly Government guidance on SRE (March 2010) in the context of a devolved education system. We argue that the characteristics of the Welsh approach to SRE include an emphasis on children’s rights and citizenship values, together with efforts to make SRE delivery more multidisciplinary and integrated. We also identify a different political rhetoric around sexual morality and family values, compared with that of England. This more progressive approach to SRE policy making, implementation and delivery in Wales is contrasted with the more heated pronouncements on the subject emanating from Westminster, particularly in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers the origins and traces the history of the Social Fund, an ideologically-motivated social policy departure of the Thatcher era. It identifies the controversy, in research communities amongst others, which surrounded the establishment of the Fund, and considers the evidence of recurring difficulties in its practical operation over a thirty-year period. It then turns to the Coalition administration in Westminster’s decision to divest itself of responsibility for key parts of the Fund, devolving such obligations to local authorities in England, the Parliament in Scotland and the Assembly in Wales. The paper sets out a comparison of the approaches being developed to discharge the Fund’s prior responsibilities in the three nations. It concludes that the essential policy thrust lies in a determination to roll back central state obligations in poverty relief and income maintenance which had hitherto been accepted by all post-war administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There are substantial variations in labour market outcomes between neighbourhoods. One potential partial explanation is that residents of some neighbourhoods face discrimination from employers. Although studies of deprived areas have recorded resident perceptions of discrimination by employers and negative employer perceptions of certain areas, until now there has been no direct evidence on whether employers treat job applicants differently by area of residence. This paper reports a unique experiment to test for a neighbourhood reputation effect involving 2001 applications to 667 real jobs by fictional candidates nominally resident in neighbourhoods with poor and bland reputations. The experiment found no statistically significant difference in employer treatment of applicants from these areas, indicating that people living in neighbourhoods with poor reputations did not face ‘postcode discrimination’ in the labour market, at the initial selection stage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses public attitudes to the current limited disclosure of sex offender scheme in the UK. The study focuses on two 'countries' of the UK (ie, Northern Ireland and Wales) where, up until now, no direct research has been done with the public on their attitudes to the sex offender disclosure scheme. This study is based upon six socially representative local focus groups (members of the public; three in each locale) with a total of 35 members of the public between them. The focus groups are semi-structured in nature and were interpreted through qualitative (thematic) content analysis. Results indicate that the public believed that, in principle, they had a right to have access to information regarding sex offenders living in their communities, but when the practicalities of this were discussed, the participants became divided on the validity of disclosure. In respect to the limited disclosure scheme, the participants did not feel that it went far enough, it was too restrictive, they were unhappy with the structure of it (especially the background checks and the confidentiality agreement) and that they did not trust the government (ie, the police) to run it appropriately. Ultimately, the participants thought that communities needed to be more involved in the management of sex offenders within them, but they were conflicted as to whether communities could handle this role. The results of this study reflects and builds upon the English and Scottish pilots, suggesting that more work needs to be done on the administration of the disclosure process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using exploratory spatial data analysis and house price data from local authority districts in England and Wales, this article considers whether a regional ripple effect can be tracked at the district level. Although spatial house price variation has been explored at a sub-regional level, this is possibly the first paper to attempt to track house price spillover between districts on a national basis. High- and low-growth clusters of areas are traced. It is concluded that spatial spillover of house price growth is unlikely to be based on interlocked markets bonded by commuting or migration alone; information flows and expectations are likely to reinforce interdistrict transmission. Specifically, house price spillover north of the East Midlands appears much more rapid than would be consistent with a ‘ripple’, suggesting that there is some support for undertaking British housing market analysis on a spatially segmented basis, even at a regional level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Personal insolvency rates vary considerably across local areas of England and Wales but the reasons for this have barely been explored. This paper presents an empirical study of the factors determining variations in personal insolvency rates in 2006 utilising newly available data. The results suggest that a number of economic and demographic factors are important including income, social benefits, age, occupation, public-sector and armed forces employment and level of local entrepreneurship. Significant spatial autocorrelation is evident in the dataset and three sub-regional clusters of local authorities are identified; one in the South West is characterised by adjacent areas with a high insolvency rate and two others in Wales and the North West that are characterised by low insolvency rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper undertakes a linkage analysis on a regional economy, concentrating on tourism-related sectors. Recent improvements in the accounting for tourism activity, through satellite account frameworks, provide information on tourism-related sectors and their transactions with the rest of the economy. Several regions of the UK have highlighted tourism as an important development sector, but often with a less than perfect understanding of how changes in tourism demand affect tourism-related sectors and then how changes in these sectors impact the rest of the economy. The study employs a series of approaches, to construct linkage measures and to explore the regional intensity of the transactions linkages of tourism-related sectors; it also considers the extent to which, in the case study region of Wales, these same sectors might be considered as 'key' in terms of their linkage strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various updates to English common law as of 2010. It cites provisions made to the Crime and Security Act 2010, and the Bribery Act 2010, which were both ratified on April 8. Amendments to the Criminal Justice Act 2003, take effect in England and Wales on May 1. A consultation paper has been issued by the Law Commission on reforming the law on public nuisance and outraging public decency.

The article reports that the Sentencing Council published a consultation paper on September 15, 2011 on three aspects of sentencing. They include totality, offences taken into consideration, as well as allocation. The objective of the draft guidelines was to ensure that the principles in each areas of sentencing practice are applied across courts in England and Wales.