New Approaches in Reward: Their Relevance to the Public Sector

Relationships between the NHS and social care services over the Past 25 years have a poor history. This article examines the strategies that have been used by central government and by local NHS and social care organizations to overcome difficulties of service co-ordination. The authors conclude that policies reflecting ‘networked’ modes of governance may stand the best chance of success, although evidence of improved impact and outcomes still remains scarce.     

The pathfinder process in Northern Ireland

Government has many customers — not just the individual citizen, but also corporate customers from the private sector. Getting close to those customers will require changes in the nature of public sector culture. Below are two examples — the first from Northern Ireland and the second from Whitehall — of government departments which have tried to change the way in which they do things.     

The development,implementation and operation of an undergraduate distance learning module in auditing: a teaching note

The development of a distance learning module, to be undertaken by students whilst out on work experience in a thick sandwich degree programme, was driven by the motive to maximize the students' time on placement, rather than the belief that the module could be more effectively taught in this manner. However, with many institutions offering work placement as an optional extension within a degree programme, our experiences may pave the way for introducing some academic input into the work placement. This paper outlines the development and operation of an auditing distance learning module, which is undertaken by students during their placement year in an Accounting and Finance degree in Scotland. The pitfalls of distance learning have been well documented and the profile of the cohort which would undertake the course exacerbated concerns. However, the Course Team have produced a model that has been implemented and is currently operating in a manner that has largely satisfied all respective stakeholders, (namely students, educators, employers, professional bodies, and external examiners). The data for the review was generated through informal discussions with the Course Team and a selection of employers. Focus groups with students were also conducted. These were deliberately unstructured in nature to facilitate the use of dialogue with which the participants were familiar. The rationale for this was to allow participants to identify and highlight salient issues as perceived by them, rather than to answer specific questions on topics that the authors believed to be of relevance.