The problem that doesn’t exist?

1999 ◽  
pp. 139-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Cunningham

Chapter six, written by Stephen Cunningham, provides evidence of the extent and form of child labour in Britain between 1920 and 1970. It assesses the size of the child labour market during this period by processing data found from Internal Home Office material and focuses in particular on the role of state officials in shaping government policy surrounding child labour laws. The chapter also investigates into the role of civil servants, politicians and the effect of recent sociological and historical interventions on the existence of child labour.

2021 ◽  
pp. jech-2021-216850
Author(s):  
Margaret MacAulay ◽  
Anna K Macintyre ◽  
Aryati Yashadhana ◽  
Adèle Cassola ◽  
Patrick Harris ◽  
...  

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in 2020, Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) entered the public spotlight like never before. Amidst this increased visibility, the role is deeply contested. Much of the disagreement concerns whether CMOs should act independently of the government: while some argue CMOs should act as independent voices who work to shape government policy to protect public health, others stress that CMOs are civil servants whose job is to support the government. The scope and diversity of debates about the CMO role can be explained by its inherently contradictory nature, which requires incumbents to balance their commitments as physicians with their mandates as civil servants who advise and speak on the government’s behalf. The long-haul COVID-19 pandemic has further tested the CMO role and has shone light on its varying remits and expectations across different jurisdictions, institutions and contexts. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that calls to amend the CMO role have emerged in some jurisdictions during the pandemic. However, any discussions about changing the CMO role need a stronger understanding of how different institutional and individual approaches impact what incumbents feel able to do, say and achieve. Based on an ongoing comparative analysis of the position across five countries with Westminster-style political systems, we provide an overview of the CMO role, explain its prominence in a pandemic, examine some debates surrounding the role and discuss a few unanswered empirical questions before describing our ongoing study in greater detail.


Author(s):  
Mike McConville ◽  
Luke Marsh

This chapter examines the role of Home Office officials around the end of the nineteenth century, allegedly upgraded by the Northcote-Trevelyan (Civil Service) reforms, in dealing with petitions against wrongful conviction. The authors exemplify the harmful role of civil servants through the paradigm case of Adolph Beck wrongly convicted twice on the basis of mistaken identification evidence. While Beck’s initial wrongful conviction was contributed to by mistakes made by prosecuting counsel, it traces his continued incarceration to incompetence and inertia by officials in the Home Office working within an institutional environment that continued to privilege hierarchy, precedent, and routine over discernment, judgment, and individual responsibility. Senior civil servants in the Home Office failed to properly oversee their juniors, magnified their failings, and sought to evade responsibility through a combination of laxity and moral cowardice. Unreformed, those failings, involving the same officials, carried forward and heavily influenced the regulation of policing and the subsequent development of the Judges’ Rules.


Author(s):  
Sonia Bhalotra

The responsibility for child labour is often cast as resting with (exploitative) employers. This creates a demand for legislation that bars employers from employing children. However, a careful look at household survey data suggests that the majority of employers are parents and, when not, parents have volunteered the child for work. This chapter focuses on the majority case of children working to help the family survive. It briefly discusses the role of legislation in curbing child labour, while arguing that it is not a substitute for efforts directed at creating income-generating opportunities amongst the poor and improving their access to education. Even when legislation is effective in lowering the incidence of child labour, it remains relevant to consider where children removed from the labour market go, which is why so much of the emphasis in the contemporary development literature is on education.


Author(s):  
Feryad A. Hussain

Radicalisation to violent action is not just a problem in foreign lands. Research has identified numerous politico–psychosocial factors to explain why young people from the UK are now joining terrorist groups such as ISIS. Our understanding has been expanded by the accounts of “returnees” who have subsequently either self-deradicalised or joined a government deradicalisation programme in the role of an Intervention Provider (IP). These individuals are now key to the deradicalisation programme. This article presents the reflections of a clinical psychologist who worked within a social healthcare team managing psychosocial issues related to radicalisation, in conjunction with an allocated IP. The project involved individuals from the Muslim community and, as such, issues discussed are specific to this group. It is acknowledged that the process in general is universally applicable to all groups though specifics may vary (under Trust agreement, details may not be discussed). This article also aims to share basic information on the current Home Office deradicalisation programme and raises questions about the current intervention. It also offers reflections on how the work of IPs may be facilitated and supported by clinical/counselling psychologists and psychotherapists.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 26-36
Author(s):  
A. V. Topilin ◽  
A. S. Maksimova

The article reflects the results of a study of the impact of migration on regional labour markets amidst a decline in the working-age population in Russia. After substantiating the relevance of the issues under consideration, the authors propose a methodological analysis toolkit, the author’s own methodology for calculating the coefficients of permanent long-term external and internal labour migration in regional labour markets, and the coefficient of total migration burden. In addition, the authors provide an overview of the information and statistical base of the study. According to current migration records, data of Rosstat sample surveys on Russian labour migrants leaving for employment in other regions, regional labour resources balance sheets based on the calculated coefficients of labour market pressures, the authors analyzed the impact of migration on the Russian regional labour markets over the past decade. It revealed an increasing role of internal labour migration in many regions, primarily in the largest economic agglomerations and oil and gas territories. At the same time, the role of external labour migration remains stable and minimum indicators of the contribution of permanent migration to the formation of regional labour markets continue to decrease. It has been established that irrational counter flows of external and internal labour migration have developed, which indicates not only an imbalance in labour demand and supply but also a discrepancy between the qualitative composition of migrants and the needs of the economy. It is concluded that the state does not effectively regulate certain types of migration, considering its impact on the labour market. The authors justified the need for conducting regular household sample surveys according to specific programs to collect information about labour migrants and the conditions for using their labour. In addition to the current migration records, using interregional analysis, this information allows making more informed decisions at the federal and regional levels to correct the negative situation that has developed in the regional labour markets even before the coronavirus pandemic had struck.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-60
Author(s):  
Nabeela Begum ◽  
Javed Iqbal ◽  
Hina

This study examines the determinants of child labour in Mardan and Nowshera districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Primary data on socioeconomic characteristics of children engaged and did not engage in child labour were obtained from Labour Education Organization Mardan. Age of the children and family size are positively and education is negatively and significantly associated with the probability of children participation in labour market. The probability of child labour is more with the household income although with a very low coefficient value which is contrary to our expectations and may ne indicative that child labour could be a major source of household income. This study suggests that subsidies may be provided to families for their children education. Family size is also positively related to the child labour, therefore steps may be taken towards encouraging small family sizes and thereby reducing the child labour.


Author(s):  
SULFIANTY SULFIANTY

The role of internal auditors is needed to encourage the realization of good and clean governance. This study aims to determine the effect of competence, independence and accountability on inspectorate audit quality in regional financial supervision. Population in this study are all civil servants Inspectorate of Pohuwat Regency. The sample selection method in this study is the saturated or census sampling method. The results of this study indicate that independence and accountability have an influence on audit quality both partially and simultaneously.   Peranan auditor internal sangat diperlukan untuk mendorong terwujudnya tata pemerintahan yang baik dan bersih. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahuipengaruh kompetensi, independensi dan akuntabilitas terhadap kualitas audit inspektorat dalam pengawasan keuangan daerah.Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah seluruh PNS Inspektorat Kabupaten Pohuwato.Metode pemilihan sampel dalam penelitian ini adalah metode sampling jenuh atau sensus.Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa kompetensi, independensi dan akuntabilitas memiliki pengaruh terhadap kualitas audit baik secara parsial maupun secara simultan.


Author(s):  
Derick R. C. Almeida ◽  
João A. S. Andrade ◽  
Adelaide Duarte ◽  
Marta Simões

AbstractThis paper examines human capital inequality and how it relates to earnings inequality in Portugal using data from Quadros de Pessoal for the period 1986–2017. The objective is threefold: (i) show how the distribution of human capital has evolved over time; (ii) investigate the association between human capital inequality and earnings inequality; and (iii) analyse the role of returns to schooling, together with human capital inequality, in the explanation of earnings inequality. Our findings suggest that human capital inequality, computed based on the distribution of average years of schooling of employees working in the Portuguese private labour market, records a positive trend until 2007 and decreases from this year onwards, suggesting the existence of a Kuznets curve of education relating educational attainment levels and education inequality. Based on the decomposition of a Generalized Entropy index (Theil N) for earnings inequality, we observe that inequality in the distribution of human capital plays an important role in the explanation of earnings inequality, although this role has become less important over the last decade. Using Mincerian earnings regressions to estimate the returns to schooling together with the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition of real hourly earnings we confirm that there are two important forces associated with the observed decrease in earnings inequality: a reduction in education inequality and compressed returns to schooling, mainly in tertiary education.


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