Pitfalls in Strategic Planning: Lessons for Legitimacy

The paper considers how planning as a political activity is underpinned by concepts of justice and how professional practitioners are consistently faced with making ethical choices in the public interest. The key objective is therefore to identify the centrality of ethics in praxis. In this context, political liberal theory is empirically useful in exploring both the role of participants and the processes employed in strategic planning. A case study analysis generates key issues which are relevant to planning in the wider arena and an extensive series of interviews provides interesting insights into the dynamic between those involved and the effectiveness of procedures followed.     

Belarusian population genetic database for 15 autosomal STR loci

Allele frequencies of 15 short tandem repeat loci included in the AmpFlSTR Identifiler kit (Applied Biosystems) were obtained from a sample set of unrelated individuals living in Belarus (n=176). For all loci, no deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was found. Results were compared with data available for the Belarusian minority residing in northeastern Poland and for other Slavic populations. Statistically significant differences were observed between Belarusians and all compared populations. The values of heterozygosity, polymorphic information content (PIC), power of discrimination (PD), power of exclusion (PE), paternity index (PI) and matching probability (pM) were calculated.     

The standard of care and expert evidence of accepted practice in medical negligence

The topic of this article is the perennial issue in medical negligence litigation of various kinds of the extent to which it is a defence to a charge of lack of reasonable care that the defendant's conduct complied with accepted professional practice. Recent English interpretations of the controversial Bolam principle are considered, before the current approach of the courts and the Health and Disability Commissioner in New Zealand is described, using case illustrations. In New Zealand expert medical opinion of accepted practice is relevant to, but not conclusive of, the standard of care. There is, however, more freedom than pursuant to the current English approach for a decision-maker to reject expert opinion of accepted practice, because he or she is able to examine not just the logical defensibility of the practice but its overall reasonableness, including where the practice involved a risk assessment on a matter of clinical judgment. A decision to reject expert opinion of accepted practice is more readily made in areas which do not involve assessment, diagnosis and treatment.     

Access to justice for New Zealand health consumers

New Zealand has evolved a just, sensible and balanced system for addressing adverse medical events. This article considers potential changes to enhance justice for health consumers after an adverse event. Patient motivations for claiming are described. Changes to the complaints regime are considered with the aim of opening up access to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. Modest change only is advocated, to avoid the potential for the tribunal to become a de facto appeal mechanism. The preferable solution is greater access to Health and Disability Commissioner investigations. The second part of the article considers changes, some implemented already, to the compensation regime to make it more affordable. These will compromise the ability of the scheme to address the remedial interest of injured patients in compensation. Undesirable consequences are likely to occur across the system. Policy-makers need to consider the ramifications of change for the system as a whole.     

Lessons from Orgreave: Police Power and the Criminalization of Protest

In October 2016, the Home Secretary ruled out a public inquiry into the ‘Battle of Orgreave', arguing that ‘very few lessons’ could be learned from a review of practices of three decades ago. It was suggested that policing has undergone a progressive transformation since the 1984–5 miners’ strike, at political, legal, and operational levels. This article, in contrast, charts a significant expansion of state control over public protest since the strike, including a proliferation of public order offences and an extension of pre‐emptive policing powers. Whilst concerns have been raised about the impact of these developments on protest rights, there is an absence of socio‐legal research into the operation of public order powers in practice. In this article, I begin to fill this lacuna. Drawing on three empirical case‐studies of protesters’ experiences of arrest and the criminal justice process, I highlight the relevance of Orgreave for contemporary policing practice.     

The Future of British Political History: Concluding Remarks

These concluding remarks reflect, in the light of the preceding articles, on two themes that recur throughout the collection. First, how can historians maintain an effective presence in public debate about politics in Britain? Second, how should political historians position themselves within the discipline, at a time when—it is suggested—political history is losing ground among British academic historians? It is argued here that, in each case, they should reflect on what they can most distinctively contribute, either as historians or as political historians; and that they should frame their interventions accordingly.     

Pursuing performance and maintaining compliance: Balancing performance improvement and accountability in Ontario's public health system

This article examines the compatibility between performance improvement and compliance‐based accountability in the implementation of a new system of public health performance management in Ontario. Findings from this mixed‐method study show that only minor elements of performance improvement get incorporated into pre‐existing compliance‐based accountability structures, that reinforcement of accountability structures works to the detriment of performance improvement intentions, and that limiting managerial influence in developing performance measures and targets diminish the utility of information for improvement. The study concludes that achieving a better balance requires an alternative to top‐down decision making that goes beyond consultation to include partnership.