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At all levels of the Australian public sector, cost constraints, coupled with the adoption of a total quality culture and associated performance evaluation techniques, have turned the attention of senior management away from financial accounting to the management of costs within a strategic framework. Argues that management accounting, planning and control systems can play a leading role in today′s dynamic and challenging public sector environment. Unlike traditional costing systems, which are often historical in focus and price‐based, new costing systems – such as activity‐based costing (ABC) – operate on the premiss that it is the activities and processes undertaken within the organization which add costs and value to the products and services. An ABC system also focuses management′s attention on the underlying causes of costs. However, warns that, in applying total quality management and ABC approaches, it is important to recognize the fundamental differences between the manufacturing industries in which they originated and the service industries which dominate the public sector.

Drawing on empirical research which incorporated biographical interviews with two older male perpetrators, this chapter develops theoretical conceptualisations of the histories, experiences and motives of these men. Four key areas are highlighted, which will be subject to closer scrutiny in relation to extant literature: (i) gender, particularly notions of masculinity, power and entitlement; (ii) attitudes relating to the use of violence both within intimate relationships and generally (iii) critical junctures in the life course which triggered attempts to desist; and (iv) an exploration of maturation and completion of treatment programmes in relation to their use of violence, future risks and efforts towards desistance.

In a village where the (audible) population is fairly evenly split between men and women, where most women of working age are employed or run their own business, where women are even (gasp!) in the cricket team, surely they have better things to talk about than the men in their lives? How often do the women of Ambridge talk about things that aren't the men of Ambridge? And when they do, how long does the conversation last? The Bechdel–Wallace Test was created by Alison Bechdel in her webcomic Dykes to Watch Out For (1985), in which a character says that she will only watch a film that has at least two women in it, who talk to each other, about something other than a man. It is sometimes used as a simplistic measure of the lack of representation (not only of women) in the media. This chapter reports on five months of eavesdropping in Ambridge, using the Bechdel–Wallace Test to investigate gender bias in the Borsetshire countryside. The data show that one-third of the episodes during this period passed the test, while another third did not contain any conversations between women at all. The results include how often individual women speak to other women, which pairs converse most frequently and the main topics of conversation during the analysis period.

BOURNEMOUTH fulfilled some of the high expectations of those who attended it. The welcome was cordial, the local arrangements good, as we were entitled to expect from so proved an organizer as Mr. Charles Riddle and from his committee and staff, and, when fine, the town was most attractive. The weather, however, was bad, and too warm at the same time for most of us. One thing that certainly emerged from this experience was the real need to change the time of the conference. Only librarians among similar bodies appear to meet in the summer season. The accountants, engineers and other professional people confer in late May or in June, when they do not compete with holiday‐makers for accommodation and attention. The Council might well consider the re‐arrangement of its year with such a change in view.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how older workers and people who have already retired speak about ageing and change and their experience of retirement.

A qualitative study is described in which focus groups with older workers and semi-structured interviews with retired people were carried out. The recorded data were analysed using a linguistic approach (Discourse Analysis), which investigates in detail how people express their views and opinions and how their discourse might relate to societal attitudes towards ageing and retirement.

Many older people who were still at work were concerned that they would decline and become senile once they retired unless they could remain active in some way. This was confirmed by people who had already retired and who spoke about how keeping busy and active had resulted in successful retirement and ageing.

Participants from four focus groups and five interview respondents represent only a small sample of older people who are still working or who are retired. This means that the results of this study cannot be extended to include all older workers and retired people.

This study will help to raise awareness of the concerns of older workers who may be nearing retirement, and how keeping busy and active after leaving work is considered by retirees to be part of successful retirement and helping to combat decline.

A study of this nature which examines how older workers express their views about retirement using Discourse Analysis is original and may be used as a method for future research into other aspects of being older at work.