TRANSACTIONS COSTS IN RURAL DECISION‐MAKING: THE CASES OF FUNDING AND MONITORING IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN ENGLAND

Public domain decisions in rural England have become more complex as the number of stakeholders having a say in them has increased. Transactions costs can be used to explore this increasing complexity. The size and distribution of these costs are higher in rural areas. Grouping transactions costs into four – organizations, belief systems, knowledge and information, and institutions – two of the latter are evaluated empirically: growth in the bid culture, and monitoring and evaluation. Amongst 65 Agents of Rural Governance (ARGs) in Gloucestershire, both were found to be increasing over time, but those relating to finance were a greater burden than those of monitoring: the latter can improve ARG performance. Increasing transactions costs in rural decision‐making appears to be at variance with ambitions of achieving ‘smaller government' through, for example, the Big Society. Smaller government is likely to be shifting the incidence of these costs, rather than reducing them.     

STRESS IN PRISON STAFF: AN OCCUPATIONAL STUDY*

A survey was conducted into the sources of occupational stress and their effects on levels of health for a group of New Zealand prison staff: Staff were categorized into three groups: Prison Officers. Ranking Prison Officers, and Instructors In addition, a control group of noncommissioned Army personnel was used as a comparison sample. Subjects were administered a job-specific “sources of stress” questionnaire, a life events measure, a personality measure (the Neuroticism Scale Questionnaire), and three health measures-the General Health Questionnaire, a medical visit checklist, and a psychosomatic symptom checklist. Factor analysis of the stress questionnaire revealed six job-specific sources of stress factors These were identified as staff relationships, task pressures, relationships with inmates, promotion, the work environment, and the impact on family life of living in a prison village. Results showed that the levels of stress experienced by staff varied across the three groups. In addition, on the three health measures all staff groups were found to score significantly higher than the control group. Further analysis showed that the variables isolated could be related to a general model of stress.