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This paper aims to investigate the use of Part VI of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 (CPSA) for people with Learning Disability (LD) and/or Autism. This is in the context of a recent review commissioned by the Scottish Government into whether the provisions in the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 (MHA) meet the needs of these groups which would also affect associated legislation such as CPSA.

All CPSA orders active on the 3 January 2018 were identified and analysed for a number of variables including diagnoses, detention length, level of hospital security and medication use.

Of the 580 people on CPSA orders, 69 (11.9%) had LD and 27 (4.7%) had possible/definite Autism. Most people with LD (56.5%) did not have a mental illness or personality disorder. Most (81.2%) had mild LD. There were two patients whose only diagnosis was Autism. Mean duration of detention was longer for those with LD than for those without. Most patients with LD alone were prescribed medication (61.5%) and, if in hospital, were managed in low secure units (59%).

The results indicate that people with LD or Autism are differently affected by the application of the CPSA from other people with mental disorders, and that this is potentially discriminatory, if it is not objectively justified . It supports the stance from the recent review that to reduce the potential for discrimination, substantial changes to MHA and CPSA should be considered in the wider review of the MHA in Scotland.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the unique and independent role of the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland.

The paper takes the reader through the history of the Commission, its changing status, roles and responsibilities, its influence and impact, and current priorities. It is based on details of the Commission ' s development, narrative from current employees and published investigations and advice.

The Mental Welfare Commission has advanced significantly since its original establishment. It plays a vital role in protecting the human rights of people in Scotland with learning disabilities and mental illness, by visiting those who are in receipt of care or treatment, investigating situations of concern, providing advice and guidance, monitoring the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 and Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 and shaping relevant policy and legislation.

This paper provides an introduction to the work of the Commission, which will be of value to readers in Scotland and beyond. It illustrates its importance in preserving the rights of individuals with learning disabilities and mental illness in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and other legislation.

Feedback is essential for Facilities. We need to know what you think, the problems you want us to address, the information you would find most valuable. The flow has already started — compliments, suggestions, and some forthright criticism. We want more. Criticism, of course, is hard to take. Take, for example, the handful of readers who took exception to Rodney Cooper's frank survey of office furniture showrooms in the West End of London. Although we explained that this was a personal view, it has become all too clear that some readers expect Facilities to be the opposite of personal — encylopaedic, authoritative, complete.

This report concerns itself with the process of change that has been underway in the city of Salford, concerning the adoption of a recovery‐oriented system of care. The paper contains the observations of the lead commissioner for drug treatment in Salford on the process of this change. The paper is influenced by William White's perspectives on recovery in Philadelphia and makes observations on their application in the British context. Finally, there is some discussion of whether this recovery approach constitutes a ‘paradigm change’ in UK drug policy. The information provided in this paper was gathered between January 2009 and July 2010. The methods included 12 initial unstructured interviews with service users self‐defined as ‘in recovery’, combined with two focus groups with seven service users and six members of staff. This initial work was then supplemented with three further focus groups conducted during the summer of 2009, involving 23 front line staff during the summer and autumn of 2009 and 52 consumer satisfaction questionnaires conducted prior to Christmas 2009. A further 40 semi‐structured interviews with service users who self‐defined as being in recovery were also concluded during the spring and summer of 2010.

The construction sector is notorious for the dichotomy between its intensive use of information in its decision‐making processes and its limited access to, and insufficient use of, the pertinent information that is potentially available, e.g. on the internet. This paper seeks to examine this issue. To solve this problem (the ‘problem of information aboutinformation’), a multidisciplinary team developed an online question‐answering (Q.‐A.)system that uses natural language for the query and the reply. The system provides a direct answer to questions posed by building industry participants, instead of providing a list of references (as is the case with most online information retrieval systems), much as if onewere asking a question of, and receiving a response from, an expert.It has the capabilitiesto process questions in natural language, to find appropriate fragments of answers indifferent web sites and to condense them into a paragraph, also written in natural language. The main features of the system are that it uses domain‐specific knowledge (in the form ofa hierarchical specialized thesaurus complemented by terms of fieldwork parlance),semantic categorization, a database of filtered and indexed web sites, and an online interface that is adapted to different profiles of actors in the construction sector. The testing process shows that the system goes beyond the lists of references and links provided by traditional search engines on the web.The Q.‐A.system already gives 70% of satisfactory answers. The Q.‐A.system can be applied to other business domains apart from information retrieval and decision‐making in the building sector. It is also possible to apply it to the exploitation of in‐house knowledge management database.

The reasons why some people use illicit drugs recreationally and in a dependent, harmful, way are not clearly understood. Various factors have been put forward, each of which may play some part in affecting individual drug using outcomes. Rounsaville (1982), for example, analysed the life records of approximately 400 opiate users and identified two antecedents to drug use, childhood trauma and early antisocial or delinquent behaviour. Social background and deprivation have also been noted as possible preceding factors. Parker et al (1987) found correlations between heroin use and unemployment, overcrowding and other indices of deprivation. Other perspectives on use, cited by Johns (1990), include availability and peer influence. Sub‐culture has also been suggested as an important context to use (Becker, 1963; Williams, 1989). The Third Triennial Report to Congress (Department of Health and Public Service, 1991) focused on individual ‘risks’, which were categorised as biological (genetic), psychological, behavioural (anti‐social and delinquent activies), demographic (such as gender or ethnic factors), and environmental (arising from family or peer group influence). However, despite these and many other perspectives on pathways to illicit drug use and drug‐related harm, a comprehensive account which seeks to ground such practices in the complex interplay between the individual, their community and elements of social structure has yet to be achieved.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

In recent years, there has been a concern that employers are falsely classifying employees as self-employed to evade collective agreements and labour laws (e.g. minimum wages, working time legislation and protection in case of redundancy), and the result is that these dependent self-employed suffer poorer working conditions. The purpose of this paper is to provide an extensive evaluation of the working conditions of those in dependent self-employment compared with the genuine self-employed.

To do so, data are reported from a 2015 European Working Conditions Survey of 35,765 workers in 28 European Union member states.

Of the 4.3 per cent of the working population found to be in dependent self-employment, the finding is that they have similar working conditions to the genuine self-employed in terms of their physical and social environment and intensity of work. However, they have poorer job prospects and less ability to use their skills and discretion than the genuine self-employed. In terms of the working time quality, meanwhile, the finding is that they have better conditions than the genuine self-employed. Therefore, this analysis uncovers the need for a more nuanced understanding of the relative working conditions of the dependent self-employed.

If the working conditions of the dependent self-employed are to be tackled, evaluation is now required of whether the current policy approaches, such as developing a hybrid category of employment with legal rights attached, address the specific working conditions that are worse for the dependent self-employed.

This is one of the few papers which provides an extensive evaluation of the working conditions of those in dependent self-employment in the EU28.