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The authors describe the incremental approach to the marketisation of the English National Health Service (NHS) since the introduction of an 'internal market' in 1990 until the 2010 White Paper, 'Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS', and the subsequent Health and Social Care Bill published in January 2011. The introduction of a competitive market for a universal, tax-financed health system requires fundamental changes in regulation in order that market bureaucracy can be substituted for direct management. The components of reform are insufficiently captured by the framework of hierarchies and networks in new public management theories of decentralisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Football is increasingly used to facilitate recovery in mental health services, often in partnership with football clubs. However, few clubs have made mental health part of their corporate social responsibility programmes until recently. We report the impact on participants of the 'Imagine Your Goals' programme, run by 16 Premier League football clubs in conjunction with England's Time to Change programme to reduce mental health-related stigma and discrimination. Mixed methods evaluation used pre/post measures of well-being, access to social capital, focus groups held early on and towards the end of the two-year programmes, and questionnaires for coaching staff. There were no significant changes to participants' mental well-being scores between baseline and follow-up, nor to the total number of social resources accessible through their networks. However, there was a statistically significant increase at follow-up in the mean score of the personal skills subscale of the Resource Generator-UK. Participants' individual skills were also higher at follow-up. Qualitative data showed programmes had largely met participants' expectations in terms of socializing, providing structure and improving fitness levels, exceeded expectations in relationships with coaching staff and additional activities, but did not always meet them in improving football skills. Participants varied in their knowledge of exit opportunities, depending on which club's programme they attended. A minority of clubs reported difficulties in recruitment and concerns about planning for the future of the projects. Football clubs and the charitable foundations they set up can successfully deliver programmes to people with mental health problems which improve access to personal skills social capital and have other potential benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians have described electoral politics in the large parliamentary constituency of Coventry during the early nineteenth century as paternalistic. This article uses the evidence of petitions from supporters of losing candidates in elections, together with a range of other sources, to show that partisan influence by the closed corporation of Coventry was powerful and persisted after the Reform Act of 1832. The selective distribution of town charity money was one of the tools used by the corporation to secure the electoral outcomes it sought, and disorder during elections reached a peak in December 1832. Such was the notoriety of Coventry corporation that central government condemned the inability of the corporation to secure law and order in the city as a precondition of elections. It was the Municipal Reform Act of 1835 that made a decisive reforming impact on the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which evaluated the key arguments underlying the local production network paradigm. Research design; Methods; Case study of companies in Hertfordshire, England; Results; Conclusions.

The article offers information on the Corporation of London Library and Art Gallery Electronic (COLLAGE). It notes that COLLAGE is a powerful custom designed visual information system that is delivered on dedicated workstations in the city, as well as in the Internet. In addition, the department is aimed at achieving a strange balance to provide an intuitive and attractive means of access, without powerful tools to question the significant body of information.