UK Government Research Articles

A History of Pain Studies and Changing Attitudes to the Welfare of Crustaceans

Early discussions about possible pain in crustaceans often comprised speculation and anecdotes. Experiments to investigate pain took guidance from these early debates, and from studies on other taxa. Many experiments provided data that are consistent with the idea of pain. However, that does not mean that pain has been proved, but they open the possibility. With each study that is consistent with pain being felt, the probability increases, but we will probably never have conclusive proof. Some responses appear to be nociceptive reflexes; however, they at least indicate that the animal responds to stimuli such as tissue damage, heat, acid, alkaline, or electric shock. The data are said to be consistent with pain only if they cannot be explained by reflexes. These studies have encouraged various organisations to improve the welfare of crustaceans, e.g., PETA, Crustacean Compassion, RSPCA, British Veterinary Association, UFAW, and HSA. They also formed much of the evidence included in the highly influential review of sentience for the UK government that resulted in the inclusion of decapod crustaceans in the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022. This recognises that decapod crustaceans are sentient. By contrast, the New York Declaration recognises there is a possibility of sentience. Others have argued against the idea of pain in crustaceans. Nevertheless, the 2022 Act provided an impetus to groups that campaign for improved welfare. Some UK retailers now require improved slaughter techniques for the shrimp/prawn they sell, and electrical stunning is the preferred slaughter method.

Running, eyes open, into segregation:The absence of an integration strategy for Britain's elites

There is an assumption in UK policy-making that there is a problem with the integration of migrant communities. This has led to political and media attention that suggests a major societal issue. This article rejects that claim but not by showing that migrants are integrated, but by changing the analytical gaze. It begins with the premise that the least integrated group in British society is not those at whom political attention is aimed. Rather than migrant communities, it is elites that live largely separate lives, and their separation is not one resulting from discrimination and/or lack of material resources, but is one actively pursued across multiple domains and transmitted inter-generationally. Using UK Government refugee integration strategies as the framework, the article examines what we know about elite integration across a multitude of domains and shows that elites live largely self-segregated lives.

What the global evidence says

A new research project is looking into the quality of provision in English baby rooms following the UK government's expansion of subsidised education and care to infants as young as nine months. In the second of two articles, Dr Mona Sakr, discusses the structural factors affecting baby rooms, staff qualifications and the need for a vision for the baby room.

Keynes and the Provincial investment problem

Abstract From early 1924 until his death in 1946, Keynes was actively involved in managing the assets of the Provincial Insurance Company, based in Kendal, Westmorland. From 1940, increasing responsibilities advising the UK Government meant a gradual reduction in day-to-day management activities, his replacement being Ian Macpherson, the senior partner of the London stock-broking firm, Buckmaster & Moore, who was well known to both Keynes and F. C. Scott, The Provincial’s managing director. The Provincial materials reproduced in Chapter 1 of Volume XII of The Collected Writings suggest increasing differences of opinion between them on investment policy from the late 1930s. A review of their correspondence in the Keynes Archive at King’s College, Cambridge, demonstrates that such differences were more serious than previously understood, with Scott imposing a significant change to Keynes’ policy in 1942 by creating the low-volatility Stable Fund accounting for 40% of total assets. Eventually, in mid-1944, this change presented Macpherson with a problem he described to Keynes as ‘most intractable’ and also involved him telling Keynes that Scott ‘does not understand the elementary principles and theory of investment’. In this article, we review Keynes’ relationship with The Provincial, tracing the development of this ‘most intractable problem’ by means of three Case Studies, which provide insights into not only his role at The Provincial but also the principles underlying the unconventional, oblique investment approach he practised in the 1930s and 1940s, as distinct from his credit cycling policy of the 1920s.

Equity in medical devices: a socio-technical approach

Medical devices risk reinforcing societal inequalities unless we rethink how they are designed, developed and deployed. The UK government’s recent independent review on Equity in Medical Devices highlights how biases...

The UK National Youth Work Curriculum—Democratic challenges from Finland

AbstractThis article compares the only two countries—the UK and Finland—that have systematically applied the concept of curriculum to youth work on the national level. It begins by charting the development of a curriculum in youth work in England which has culminated in the production of the new UK government's Department for Culture Media & Sport funded ‘National Curriculum for Youth Work’ produced by the NYA in 2020. Whilst this entails a shift for youth work in England and removes an element of democracy for local youth workers to agree and establish their own priorities, it does provide a clear policy direction for a beleaguered youth sector. This article then discusses the published findings of a 10‐year action research project led by the Finnish Youth Research Society which has worked with local youth workers and managers in a variety of municipal youth work organizations (N = 6) to establish local youth work curricula. The model has been utilized in 26 municipalities since. The Finnish experience provides a marked contrast to the UK youth work curriculum, as they argue their approach is a more authentic method of establishing a youth work curriculum. The documents produced a clear representations of youth work practice and they contrast with the top‐down national curriculum framework. Whilst the UK model may be a positive response to the policy challenges facing youth workers in the UK—the Finnish experience raises questions of the currency within and ownership by the field of any youth work curriculum.

“We’re all in the same storm, but not all of us are in the same boat”: qualitative exploration of UK response-focused civil servants experiences of working from home during COVID-19

IntroductionThe experiences of UK Government response-focused employees, who were considered frontline workers during the coronavirus response, are missing from current literature. Meeting the demands of being on the frontline, whilst also adjusting from a normal and practiced way of working to having to work from within one’s home, may bring a plethora of new barriers and facilitators associated with providing an effective pandemic response.MethodThis interview study collected and analysed data from 30 UK Civil servants who worked on the COVID-19 pandemic response from their own homes. Interviews aimed to: (1) explore UK Government employee’s experiences of working from home whilst contributing to the pandemic response; and, (2) establish what support and guidance employees were offered, and what they would recommend for future public health emergencies requiring homeworking.ResultsSeven themes were extracted from the data: overall experience of working from home; preparedness for working from home; experience of contributing to the response effort; work life balance; relationships with colleagues; space and equipment; and, inclusivity. Findings suggested that during the pandemic, participants reported feeling a strong sense of purpose and achievement for contributing to the response. But, the work was demanding, particularly for those who had to rapidly, and unexpectedly, transition from office or lab work to home working. More generally, the nature of their homeworking experience depended on a range of practical (e.g., space in the home), organisational (e.g., relationships with managers) and personal factors (e.g., caring responsibilities). Many participants were underprepared to work from home, but participants provided a plethora of information relating to what support offers they would find useful during future work on the frontline from their own homes.ConclusionThe results of this study demonstrate that frontline UK Civil servants may need more tailored and flexible multilevel support (i.e., from peers, managers, organisations) during future public health emergencies when they are required to work from home. A series of data-informed recommendations are created and discussed.

Seroprevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato antibodies in English adult blood donors: A nationwide cross-sectional study, 2021-2022.

Estimates of Lyme disease incidence in England are based on reporting of cases with a laboratory-confirmed diagnosis only, underestimating total cases. In 2017 - 2018, two independent reviews commissioned by the UK Government highlighted the lack of official data on Lyme disease prevalence and incidence as a critical knowledge gap. To estimate the prevalence of IgG antibodies in the English adult population specific for Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (Bbsl), the causative agent of Lyme disease. The prevalence of Bbsl-specific antibodies in the English population was estimated in a cross-sectional cohort, selected from an archive of residual NHS blood donor plasma samples (age range 17 - 84, collected between 2021 - 2022). 10,000 samples were randomly selected proportionate to the population size of each of the nine English administrative regions. 9,994 samples were tested using a standard two-tiered testing strategy, with an IgG/IgM ELISA followed by an IgG immunoblot (array) test for any sera with positive or indeterminate reactivity in the ELISA. Out of the 9,994 samples tested, 482 were seroreactive by screening ELISA. After two-tier testing, 49 were confirmed positive. Regional and demographic differences in seroprevalence were observed after two-tier testing, but due to the low overall seroprevalence, were not significant upon multivariable analysis. The seroprevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato-specific IgG in the English adult population (2021 - 2022), determined using two-tier testing was estimated at 0.49 % (95 % CI 0.36 - 0.65). This is lower than neighbouring UK nation Scotland and other northern European countries.

Achieving net zero carbon through construction procurement and contracting

This opinion considers how ‘net zero carbon’ can be achieved through construction procurement and contracting and in doing so (i) discusses what prevents construction from achieving net zero, (ii) considers what procurement and contracting systems can deliver net zero, (iii) explores how the UK government supports net zero procurement and contracting and finally (iv) describes how a net zero alliance (which is a collaborative way of working) operates in practice. The authors argue that (i) innovative approaches to achieving net zero carbon through solutions can be applied holistically to construction strategy, procurement, contracting and management, and also stress the point that (ii) new strategic relationships and processes play a crucial role in ensuring that clients, advisors and the construction industry can deliver net zero carbon targets in practice on a variety of different projects and programmes of work.

Sustaining life satisfaction and worthwhileness in older age: the role of diversity of social and leisure activity engagement

ABSTRACT Adapting to health changes helps sustain wellbeing in later life. Life satisfaction and worthwhileness of life are both monitored by the UK government; worthwhileness is under-researched. Motivated by Selection, Optimisation and Compensation theory, we investigated whether greater diversity of social and leisure activity engagement mediates relationships between self-assessed health and both life satisfaction and worthwhileness. To inform policy and practice, we also investigated whether mediation effects varied between different sub-groups of older people, including young-old vs older-old; retirees vs non-retirees and more vs less physically active. Structural Equation Modelling on a large sample of England-resident adults aged 50+ (n = 9,395) found greater diversity of social and leisure activity engagement partially mediated the total effect of self-assessed health on life satisfaction and worthwhileness. Mediation was greater for worthwhileness than for life satisfaction and greatest for retirees. These results suggest that encouraging older people to engage with more diverse types of social and leisure activity should be considered when designing policies and programmes to increase older peoples’ wellbeing. These findings add to the relatively sparse literature on correlates of the Office for National Statistics’ worthwhileness measure of personal wellbeing.

The Evolution of Digital Security by Design Using Temporal Network Analysis

Digital Security by Design (DSbD) is an initiative supported by the UK government aimed at transforming digital technology to deliver necessary digital resilience and prosperity across the UK. As emerging challenges in the field of digital security evolve, it becomes essential to explore how entities involved in DSbD interact and change over time. Understanding these dynamic relationships can provide crucial insights for the development and improvement of security practices. This paper presents a data-driven analysis of the evolving landscape of DSbD from 2019 to 2024, gathering insights from textual documents referencing DSbD. Using a combination of text mining techniques and network analysis, a large corpus of textual documents was examined to identify key entities, including organisations, individuals, and the relationships between them. A network was then visualised to analyse the structural connections between these entities, revealing how key concepts and actors have evolved. The results and discussion demonstrate that the network analysis offers a unique advantage in tracking and visualising these evolving relationships, providing insights into shifts in focus, emerging trends, and changes in technological adoption over time. For example, a notable finding from the analysis is the substantial increase in node relationships associated with Artificial Intelligence (AI). We hypothesise that this surge reflects the growing integration of AI into digital security strategies, driven by the need for more adaptive and autonomous solutions to tackle evolving cyber threats, as well as the rapid introduction of new AI tools to the market and their swift adoption across various industries. By mapping such connections, such results are useful, helping practitioners and researchers recognise new security demands and adjust strategies to better respond to the evolving landscape of DSbD.

Discourses of division during the cost-of-living crisis: digital popular culture responds to governmental actions

Abstract The global 2023 economic slowdown contributed to a cost-of-living crisis that has impacted the daily lives of many, it being a structural and ‘well-being emergency’. Governments respond differently, based in part on political orientation and election cycles. The UK Conservative government, accused of leaning on populist discourses, responded in part with its 2023 budget. This paper uses Multimodal Critical Discourse Studies to investigate how a music mash up shared widely on social media criticises the UK government’s response, digital popular culture being a vital form of political participation and activism today. I examine lexica, images and musical sounds to reveal how government actions are ‘recontextualised’, that is, transformed through deletions, rearrangements, substitutions, and additions. Analysis provides a lens into what issues and events are raised and how these are articulated through divisive discourses. It is through this close reading that I consider digital popular culture’s roles in society.

UK Public Attitudes and Perceptions of Seafood Sustainability: A Case Study of the Marine Conservation Society’s Good Fish Guide

Globally, the ocean faces growing pressures from various human activities, not just those related to overfishing and other fisheries related issues. In response to these pressures over the last few decades, seafood guides were developed to influence seafood purchasing behaviour and in turn increase the sustainability of the fisheries sector. However, to date there has been limited evaluation of the use and impact of these guides, and little assessment of public perceptions and attitudes to seafood sustainability. Using a public questionnaire (n = 2409) and the Marine Conservation Society’s (MCS’s) Good Fish Guide (GFG) as a case study, this study explored UK public attitudes and perceptions toward seafood sustainability and examined the role of the GFG in encouraging sustainable seafood purchasing habits. Motivational drivers and barriers to using the MCS GFG were also investigated. A positive attitude towards the guide and knowledge, including understanding of the importance of sustainability, were found to be important motivators of use. The main barrier was found as lack of awareness of the guide for 69% of participants. This study also revealed that the perception of seafood as healthy, and a more environmentally friendly animal protein than land-based alternatives is an important driver for its consumption. MCS GFG users were found to purchase significantly more (60%) seafood compared to non-users with a slight majority (53%) reporting that guide use influences their purchasing behaviour. These findings have practical implications for using guides to increase seafood consumption in line with UK government dietary guidelines whilst simultaneously meeting global sustainability goals. The study makes a unique contribution to understanding how the use of seafood guides can influence public purchasing behaviour both in the UK and globally and thus their potential for impacting the sustainability of seafood supply chains more generally.

Leading the Way: Working Towards Heritage-Led Nature Recovery in Natural England

ABSTRACT The climate and biodiversity crises are an immediate and existential threat, risking the widespread loss and degradation of habitats across England. The UK Government’s Environmental Improvement Plan commits us to being the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it, and the long-term conservation and enhancement of the historic environment is an essential component of this commitment. However, as the pressure mounts to deliver nature recovery faster, at greater scale and within increasingly tighter budgets, does heritage run the risk of being overlooked? Natural England’s 2023 guidance Nature Recovery and the Historic Environment provides a best-practice framework to ensure appropriate integration of heritage into nature recovery, but it also goes further – exploring the correlations between our historic and natural environments and the ways in which heritage assets can provide added value to nature recovery projects. This paper will take this thinking a step further and consider how projects led by heritage can deliver across the full spectrum of environmental objectives: to inform, inspire and improve habitat restoration, species abundance, soil health, improved air and water quality, public access, landscape distinctiveness and rural placemaking.

Micronutrients or processing? An analysis of food and drink items from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey based on micronutrient content, the Nova classification and front of package traffic light labelling.

Increased ultra-processed food (UPF) intake is associated with adverse health outcomes. However, with limitations in UPF evidence, and partial overlap between UK front of package labelling (FOPL) and degree of food processing, the value of food processing within dietary guidance is unclear. This study compared food and drink from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) database based on micronutrient content, Nova classification and FOPL. The aim was to examine the micronutrient contributions of UK food and drink to UK government dietary micronutrient recommendations for adult females and males, aged 19-64 years, based on the degree of food processing and FOPL. NDNS items were coded into minimally processed food (MPF), processed culinary ingredients (PCI), processed food (PF) and UPF, and FOPL traffic lights. MPF, PF and UPF provided similar average contributions per 100g to micronutrient recommendations. Per 100kcal, MPF provided the greatest average contribution to micronutrient recommendations (14.4% [interquartile range (IQR):8.2-28.1]), followed by PF (7.7% [IQR:4.6-10.9], then UPF (5.8% [IQR:3.1-9.7]). After adjusting for healthy/unhealthy items (presence of 1+ red FOPL), MPF had higher odds of an above average micronutrient contribution per 100kcal than UPF (odds ratio (OR): 5.9x (95%CI:4.9, 7.2)), and PF (OR:3.2 (95%CI:2.4, 4.2)). MPFs were more likely to provide greater contributions to dietary micronutrient recommendations than PF or UPF per 100kcal. These findings suggest that UPF or PF diets are less likely to meet micronutrient recommendations than an energy-matched MPF diet. The results are important for understanding how consumers perceive the healthiness of products based on FOPL.

The nexus between governance quality, modern slavery disclosure and corporate financial performance

PurposeModern slavery is a significant issue addressed in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. In 2015, the UK Government introduced the Modern Slavery Act as part of a crucial broader set of initiatives that aimed to attack modern slavery. Regardless of the initiatives taken to mitigate this risk, little is known about how modern slavery disclosure affects corporate financial performance (CFP). Hence, our study aims to examine the impact of MSD on CFP empirically. It also examines the moderating role of governance quality on the MSD–CFP nexus.Design/methodology/approachWe use computer-based content analysis to assess MSD levels for a sample of non-financial companies' annual reports. We use regression analysis to test our research hypotheses for a sample period of 2013–2019 for Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) All-Share non-financial UK firms. Our sample consisted of 786 observations.FindingsWe provide new empirical evidence that externally communicating modern slavery information in annual report narratives is associated with CFP. The finding is in line with stakeholder theory, which states that engaging in social responsibility practices and responding favourably to the stakeholders’ interests and desires would enhance corporations’ reputation and ultimately improve their performance. We further highlight the role of governance quality in this nexus and find that the interaction between governance quality and MSD is negative, suggesting a replacement effect.Social implicationsOur findings can be of interest to government, policymakers and other stakeholders. Policymakers need to establish a new, broader set of enforcement arrangements for MSD that may lead to better CFP.Originality/valueOur research idea is original as it links emerging global issues (e.g. MSD) with traditional corporate concerns (financial performance) in a way that is likely to provide new insights as well as managerial and policy implications.

‘Inevitably the package will be dismissed […] as inadequate and grudging’: regionalism, ambivalence and the road to the North East of England referendum defeat in 2004

ABSTRACT The New Labour Government of 1997 to 2010 oversaw considerable constitutional reforms, particularly in relation to the United Kingdom’s territorial constitution. While devolution to Scotland and Wales, and the peace process that saw the re-establishment of devolved institutions to Northern Ireland (notwithstanding their subsequent instability), will be familiar to any student of British politics since 1997, there was also an English dimension to this reform agenda. Labour’s 1997 election manifesto included a commitment to, at an appropriate time and in areas where there was sufficient demand, legislate for referendums for regional government. This commitment would play out in the 2004 referendum held in the North East of England when an overwhelming majority of those voting rejected the proposed local assembly. This article looks at the years leading up to that referendum, drawing on the latest government papers from that period which have been released, as well as contemporaneous analyses. While the ambivalence felt by many within the UK Government towards regional devolution has been discussed before, this article sheds new light on the extent, and scale, of those sentiments, as well as on the wariness and scepticism felt by those at the very heart of Downing Street regarding the Governments devolution agenda.

Effects of UK hostile environment policies on maternity care for refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants in Camden: Examining the experiences of healthcare professionals and community organisations.

The London borough of Camden has long been home for many refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants (RASUs). Over time, it has witnessed an increase in the population of these migrant groups, accompanied by notable changes in the obstacles they encounter when seeking health services, particularly maternity care. We explore how the 'hostile environment' policies affect access to and delivery of quality maternity services for RASUs. This study was conducted over eight months (November 2021-July 2022) both remotely and face-to-face, in various locations in Camden and in the Maternity Department at University College London Hospital, UK. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) and community organisations (COs) were identified as two major stakeholders involved in the care provision for RASUs. 33 semi-structured interviews were conducted (with 22 HCPs and 11 COs) to understand their experiences of delivering care to this population. There was consensus among HCPs and COs that the current immigration policies undermined their duty of care, personal morals, and the principles of the NHS. These policies have created a restrictive environment, making it increasingly difficult for migrants to navigate the healthcare system and creating an atmosphere of distrust, propagating fears of being charged. This has led to HCPs and COs going beyond their remits to ensure that RASUs are accessing and engaging with maternity care, regardless of an individual's status and despite any potential repercussions for themselves. In the face of an intensifying hostile environment under the UK government, supporting RASUs cannot be solely reliant on political measures. We need to advocate for healthcare navigator roles, health justice partnerships, specialist teams, and comprehensive training for service providers. HCPs and COs should be adequately supported in their endeavours to ensure RASUs have access to standardised, high-quality maternity care.

Reconstructing the first COVID-19 pandemic wave with minimal data in England.

Accurate measurement of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in the population is crucial for understanding the dynamics of disease transmission and evaluating the impacts of interventions. However, it was particularly challenging to achieve this in the early phase of a pandemic because of the sparsity of epidemiological data. We previously developed an early pandemic diagnostic tool that linked minimum datasets: seroprevalence, mortality and infection testing data to estimate the true exposure in different regions of England and found levels of SARS-CoV-2 population exposure to be considerably higher than suggested by seroprevalence surveys. Here, we re-examine and evaluate the model in the context of reconstructing the first COVID-19 epidemic wave in England from three perspectives: validation against the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Coronavirus Infection Survey, relationship among model performance and data abundance and time-varying case detection ratios. We find that our model can recover the first, unobserved, epidemic wave of COVID-19 in England from March 2020 to June 2020 if two or three serological measurements are given as additional model inputs, while the second wave during winter of 2020 is validated by estimates from the ONS Coronavirus Infection Survey. Moreover, the model estimates that by the end of October in 2020 the UK government's official COVID-9 online dashboard reported COVID-19 cases only accounted for 9.1 % of cumulative exposure, dramatically varying across the two epidemic waves in England in 2020, 4.3 % vs 43.7 %.

Global Britain and cosmopolitan nationalism

ABSTRACT The term ‘Global Britain’ was widely used by the UK government between 2016 and 2021 to signal its ambition to reorient the nation’s foreign policy on departure from the European Union. There was, however, considerable uncertainty about what the term meant beyond this, with some commentators suggesting that it denoted a de-prioritising of relations with European nations, others arguing that it represented a reassertion of colonial perspectives, and yet others contending it was largely an empty concept, devoid of meaning. In this article, we draw on a range of policy documents to consider whether it can be considered a form of ‘cosmopolitan nationalism’ – i.e. a policy agenda that promoted both a sense of nationalism and a global outlook. In developing our analysis, we focus on education – not least because this was one of the few policy domains where the language of ‘Global Britain’ was, until recently, still used (in the promotion of the Turing Scheme). We argue that while, prima facie, the term seems a plausible case of cosmopolitan nationalism, the significant limitations to the ‘global outlook’ that is deployed suggest that it was far from ‘cosmopolitan’ in its reach and ambition.