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Accreditation encourages the examination of programs as to whether they make sense as a whole and if students are well prepared for the world of work. Current accreditation is directed toward the assessment of learning and the assessment for learning. What is competence? Professional organizations and higher education should be involved in determining what is competence, how should it be measured and by what standard it should be evaluated. Digital portfolios provide a means for professionals, students and education entities to demonstrate competence. Portfolios provide performance‐based assessment; artifacts that provide real‐world preparedness.

It made a pleasant change to travel a mere 15 miles from base to report on the above two‐day event held at The Hospitality Inn, Irvine. Bypassing Troon en route, and glimpsing the vast marquees and stands erected in preparation for the British Open, there was a sense of relief at escaping the inevitable traffic snarl‐ups predicted for the following week when the international golfing fraternity would invade this normally sleepy, small seaside town.

Reviews a range of theories, concepts and learning approaches that are relevant to the development of professionals. Goes on to take a look at how professionals actually learn, once they are in practice. The latter is based on empirical research conducted across 20 professions. Reports on the range of experiences and events that practitioners had found particularly formative in helping them become fully competent professionals; this point often not having been reached until long after their formal professional training had ended. An attempt is made to relate the formative experiences reported to particular theoretical approaches to learning. The experiences are classified into a number of general kinds of “learning mechanism” and these are placed within a “taxonomy of informal professional learning methods”. The results of the research should be of use both to professional developers and to individual professionals. They should assist developers in their planning of placements or post‐formal training. They should help individual professionals to maximise their professional learning, by seeking out particular kinds of experience and making the most of those that come their way.

It is important that agency advice and support for SMEs in rural areas is congruent with how business-owners perceive their needs and challenges. To explore how well matched these two sides are, this chapter investigates the difficulties faced by small businesses operating in rural southwest Scotland.

In-depth interviews with business influencers (those whose activities affect businesses either through application of policy initiatives, development of policy or the giving of business advice) and owner-managers of rural businesses compare and contrast the perceptions of the challenges of rurality for small businesses.

Mismatches are revealed between the concerns of rural business-owners and what business influencers understand them to be. Business influencers consider that structural weaknesses and a ‘lifestyle’ business culture in the region inhibit growth, but business owners are strategic in their business aspirations and approaches to growth. However, they are also highly critical of the promotion of the region and concerned about the misunderstanding of potential visitors that the region is remote and difficult to access.

This chapter reports experiences in a particular rural location; such experiences are typical of many rural regions and, thus, the findings should be transferable.

The region’s economic strategy focuses on reducing the significant prosperity gap with the rest of the country. Key to this is the development of indigenous business sectors. However, the policy interventions derived from a misapprehension of the constraints and underpinning culture of indigenous businesses are unlikely to be successful and may be counter-productive.

Contrasting the perspectives of those who do business with those who influence business reveals issues of understanding which need to be addressed.

The problems involved in trying to measure the effect of the budget on the distribution of lifetime income are reviewed. A comparison is made of the likely differences between the stylised facts of annual incidence studies and the possible lifetime impact of the budget. Annual studies show that redistribution to the poor occurs, primarily as a result of pensions. It is likely that the lifetime incidence of the budget is broadly neutral since pensions will not accrue mainly to the lowest deciles when a lifetime income perspective is taken.

Interest Groves for First East‐European Inter‐Nepcon Presently considered as one of the largest untapped markets for electronics production and associated equipment, the USSR and surrounding East European countries eagerly await the staging of next year's INTER‐NEPCON/MOSCOW, which is perhaps the most vital part of their current expansion programme.