England Regulations Research Articles

The Impact of COVID-19 Restrictions and Changes to Takeaway Regulations in England on Consumers' Intake and Methods of Accessing Out-of-Home Foods: A Longitudinal, Mixed-Methods Study.

COVID-19 restrictions significantly impacted the operations of fast food and full-service retailers. Full-service retailers were permitted to operate as takeaway outlets without needing to seek formal changes in planning permissions. We conducted a study to determine consumers' intake and modes of accessing foods from fast food and full-service retailers during various COVID-19 restrictions and changes to takeaway/delivery regulations, as well as their experiences. We conducted a longitudinal, mixed-methods study comprising three surveys, which examined the intake frequency and modes of accessing retailers, and two rounds of qualitative focus groups, which explored their related experiences. The data were collected at three timepoints (T) from May 2021-March 2022. The participants were adults living in Northern England (n = 701 at T1); a sub-sample participated in the focus groups (n = 22). The intake data were presented descriptively; an ordered logit regression explored the factors associated with the intake frequency. The focus group data were analysed using a framework analysis. The mean weekly intake frequency from fast food retailers at T1, T2, and T3 was 0.96 (SD 1.05), 1.08 (SD 1.16), and 1.06 times (SD 1.12), respectively. For full-service retailers, this was 0.36 (SD 0.69), 0.75 (1.06), and 0.71 (SD 0.99) times, respectively. Food access issues (OR (SE): T1 = 1.65 (0.40), T2 = 2.60 (0.66), T = 2.1 (0.62)) and obesity (T1 = 1.61 (0.31), T2 = 2.21 (0.46), T3 = 1.85 (0.42)) were positively associated with intake from fast food, but not full-service retailers. Delivery services were commonly used to access fast food (30-34% participants), but not full-service retailers (6-10% participants). As COVID-19 restrictions eased, participants were eager to socialise on-premises at full-service retailers. Takeaway/delivery services were seldom used to access full-service retailers, but the use of delivery services to access fast food was high. Policymakers must recognise delivery services as a growing part of the food environment, and the challenges they pose to planning policies for obesity prevention.

Balancing the incentives in English higher education: the imperative to strengthen civic influence for levelling up

ABSTRACT The UK government’s levelling up strategy is the latest attempt to address the nation’s spatial inequalities. This issue has been amplified by voting in the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union, within which people in places with lower levels of educational qualifications and wages demonstrated their desire for change. These places have been characterised as ‘left behind’ by the pursuit of a knowledge economy fuelled by university expansion and mobile labour. The article explores how the specific policies adopted to support university expansion in England have influenced spatial inequalities and the political motivation for levelling up. It then describes how universities are recognised within the diagnosis of spatial inequalities in the Levelling Up White Paper and the vision for addressing them, but not the strategy embodied in its prescription of missions. The article concludes by exploring how tertiary education systems can strengthen the civic influence on universities, and how this could inform future approaches to funding and regulation in England. This could balance the growing influence of national government and global market forces, which has been a feature of university expansion in England since the 1980s, and thereby position universities better for the imperative of levelling up.

Evolution and Current State of Building Materials, Construction Methods, and Building Regulations in the U.K.: Implications for Sustainable Building Practices

This study presents a comprehensive review of building materials, construction methods, and building regulations on the U.K. mainland. This provides valuable insights into the historical progression and transformation of the construction industry through a comprehensive analysis of both traditional and modern building construction materials and methods and categorising their evolutionary trajectory. Current building regulations in England, Wales, and Scotland are compared, highlighting differences in fire safety, noise safety, energy conservation, and sustainability. For example, fire safety regulations are analysed in detail, including fire resistance duration, wall cladding combustibility, and limitations on unprotected areas. Advances in knowledge and technology have led to increasingly sophisticated and energy-dependent methods, materials, and regulations. This study showcases the vast array of building construction materials spanning centuries, each possessing unique properties and performances. The selected methods and materials represent those currently employed or widely utilised in the U.K. construction industry, affirming their relevance and applicability in modern construction practices. Limitations in construction practices primarily stem from a lack of knowledge and tools rather than material scarcity. Enhancing knowledge and access to advanced tools is crucial to overcoming these limitations and driving advancements in the field. This study provides insights into the evolution of building materials, construction methods, and building regulations that can inform future developments in sustainable building practices. The findings have significant implications for policymakers, building designers, and constructors, particularly in terms of adopting sustainable materials and construction methods that comply with building regulations while reducing the environmental impact of the built environment.

Alcohol Regulation, Historical Change and the Contemporaneity of the Non-Contemporaneous: A Non-Linear Story in Four Parts

This article uses the example of alcohol regulation in England and Wales to explore how historical change can be understood within criminology. Pivoting away from criminology’s tendency to understand historical change as occurring in rapid, radical bursts (usually followed by periods of stability), it takes inspiration from the emerging use of historical institutionalist and Koselleckian approaches within historical criminology. Alcohol regulationin England and Wales is complex, overlapping and sometimes even contradictory. It is shown here that this regulatory messiness reflects the plurality of temporalities which, following Koselleck, animate alcohol regulation in the contemporary historical moment. It is further demonstrated that historical institutionalist concepts (e.g. near misses, transformation by accumulation, layering) can be used to help identify and analyse the non-contemporaneousorigins and discrete lineages of these currently co-existing temporalities. The article thus provides a new and original account of the historical development and contemporary character of alcohol regulation in England and Wales. Moreover, its theoretical synthesis of Koselleckian and historical institutionalist ideas offers a promising theoretical framework which could be used more widely in criminological studies to examine the connections between historical change and crime or its control in contemporary societies.

No Wood, No Kingdom: Political Ecology in the English Atlantic

In No Wood, No Kingdom, Keith Pluymers demonstrates that, over the course of the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century, gaps between the perceptions and realities of wood scarcity led to contradictory claims about resource availability in the English Atlantic. Pluymers focuses on the role of political ecology, which refers to ideas and practices governing resource use, in shaping imperial expansion. In contesting the “windfall” thesis, or the notion that domestic deforestation impelled the English to expand into the Atlantic basin, Pluymers argues that political ecology in the English Atlantic was characterized by uncertainty due to challenges in defining resource prevalence, regulating the movement of timber, and acquiring accurate information for imperial and commercial interests (9–10, 237). Through an examination of promotional tracts, administrative documents, maps, and forestry regulations in England, Ireland, Virginia, Bermuda, and Barbados, Pluymers paints an insightful picture of officials, foresters, and colonists struggling over questions of land and resource use.The book is organized into five core chapters, not including the introduction or the concluding sixth chapter, with each chapter covering political ecology in distinct geographical spaces. Chapter 1 analyzes the Tudor and Stuart forestry reforms that sought to maximize the valuation of Crown lands through surveying as the kingdom tried to balance the revenue generated from timber leases with local needs (58). In chapter 2, Pluymers shows how the English went from promoting Irish woodlands as places of abundance in the 1580s to the 1630s when the fear that English forests were full of waste prompted closer scrutiny of Irish woods, but by then the Crown had already overzealously granted woodland leases such that royal access to Irish forests was limited (105). Similarly, in chapter 3, Virginia Company promoters initially encouraged a vision of abundance but, when faced with actually governing the Tsenacommacah woods, they tried to forge commercial and material connections with England by using the woods to sustain sericulture and ironworks, which ultimately failed following the 1622 Algonquian attack on Jamestown (128). Chapter 4 turns to Bermuda, where, despite many challenges, Bermudan trees became key to the colony’s early economy and the subject of the 1622 Orders and Constitutions that enacted a conservationist regime on the island (138). In chapter 5, Pluymers argues that environmental degradation on Barbados did not occur because of ecological illiteracy but because the colony’s political ecology shifted in the mid-seventeenth century from protectionism to privileging profits from sugarcane plantations (170). Chapter 6 situates John Evelyn’s Sylva (1664) within these Atlantic discourses of uncertainty to underscore the persistence of scarcity anxieties.Pluymers succeeds at uncovering a range of competing and frustrated political ecologies that existed in the English Atlantic. One of the strongest sections of the book is in Pluymers’s analysis of English maps of Irish forests, which revealed their struggles with documenting the Irish landscape (67–73). Another intriguing aspect is that many colonists relied on Indigenous, African, and Afro-Caribbean experts for ecological knowledge to protect resources in the colonies (110, 166, 189). While the book’s focus on particular places is one of its strengths, one difficulty of the colony-by-colony approach is that it inadvertently reinforces spatial separation by making readers deliberate on the book’s themes across distinct geographical regions. For instance, the tension between the resource interests of colonists and the central government emerges as a key theme throughout (88, 178) but is never really highlighted for the reader. Nonetheless, the book is both timely and contributes to a growing scholarly examination of the disjunction between knowledge and practice in the early modern world. It will especially interest scholars working on environmental, imperial, and Atlantic histories.

The Evolution of External Healthcare Regulation in England; From Performance Oversight to Supporting Improvement Comment on "The Special Measures for Quality and Challenged Provider Regimes in the English NHS: A Rapid Evaluation of a National Improvement Initiative for Failing Healthcare Organisations".

The Special Measures and Challenged Provider (SMCP) Regime introduced for struggling healthcare organisations in England represents a subtle shift to the scope of external regulation from performance oversight to include supporting internal service improvement. External regulation alone has a had a mixed impact on the quality of care and Vindrola-Padros and colleagues' study highlights that externally driven improvement initiatives may also struggle to succeed in turning around performance. Principally, this is due to a failure in acknowledgment that poor performance results from a myriad of external and internal factors which coalesce to impede organisational performance. A struggling organisation may be indicative of wider issues in the local health and care system. Whole systems approaches to improvement with collaboration across providers and the effective use of data may support struggling organisations but their role maybe tempered with the increased centralisation of the delivery of improvement regimes such as SMCP.

Moving the River: Rethinking Regulation in Social Work

Abstract Social work regulation in England has experienced a considerable period of change in recent years. The profession’s latest regulator, Social Work England, faces similar challenges to sister professions—and to social work internationally—to improve and focus regulatory activity to better protect the public. In examining activity around poor performance and fitness to practice (FTP), the author explores the potential for shifting the emphasis of a regulatory gaze to practice before problems occur, rather than always dealing with the after-effects (known as ‘upstreaming’). A case is also made for developing ‘formative spaces’—where organisations might construct interventions to address professional performance before recourse to regulatory structures. To examine the readiness of organisational structures to take on this task, a series of qualitative, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with experienced practitioners. Thematic analysis of the data illustrates a range of current strategies for dealing with these issues. In conclusion, this article promotes the idea of shifting the balance of regulatory activity away from FTP areas to more positive, proactive endeavours that might better protect the public and help the profession manage the challenges faced by the complexity of contemporary practice.

Transforming Perceptions: The Development of Pre-pack Regulations in England and Wales.

The article systematically assesses the extent to which the Administration (Restrictions on Disposal etc. to Connected Persons) Regulations 2021 achieve the goal of the government to quell the negative perceptions of pre-pack administration. The pre-pack has generated much criticism from disenfranchised groups who regard the practice with much suspicion. These criticisms have triggered questions as to whether and how to structure the regulation of pre-packs. The article introduces original frames through which to distinguish the competing regulatory visions of the pre-pack, as well as to systematically evaluate the regulatory frameworks that have been introduced. The evaluation reveals a gap between the regulatory visions of the critics and the regulator. This gap has impacted the reception and effectiveness of successive regulatory frameworks. Combining its frames with the expectation gap theory, the article offers a critical assessment of the 2021 reforms, which address most but not all the criticisms of the pre-pack.

Social Work England: A regulator worthy of our collective dissent

INTRODUCTION: In December 2019, Social Work England (SWE) officially took over as the regulator of the approximately 100,000 social workers in England. This article explores the foundations and first two years of SWE, suggesting that, as a regulator, it has earned the collective dissent of social workers. APPROACH: Initially, a brief history of social work regulation in England is provided, before moving on to explore the founding of SWE and the makeup of the organisation. The regulator’s standards and rules, approach to consultation and representative role are also discussed. DISCUSSION: This culminates in a discussion about the dissent that many social workers in England have already started to demonstrate towards SWE, with a particular focus on the new continuing professional development (CPD) requirements. The potential to translate this largely individual dissent into collective action and mutual support is explored.

A decision support system to assess the feasibility of onshore renewable energy infrastructure

This article introduces a new web-based decision support system created for early-stage feasibility assessments of renewable energy technologies in England, UK. The article includes a review of energy policy and regulation in England and a critical evaluation of literature on similar decision support systems. Overall, it shows a novel solution for a repeatable, scalable digital evidence base for the policy compliant deployment of renewable energy technologies.Data4Sustain is a spatial decision support system developed to quickly identify the feasibility of seven renewable energy technologies across large areas including wind, solar, hydro, shallow and geothermal. A multi-actor approach was used to identify the key factors that influence the technical feasibility of these technologies to generate electricity or heat for local consumption or regional distribution. The research demonstrates opportunities to improve the links between policy and regulation with deployment of renewable energy technologies using novel approaches to digital planning.Deployed, resilient, cost-effective and societally accepted renewable energy generation infrastructure has a role to play in ensuring universal access to affordable, reliableand modern energy supply. This is central to supporting a concerted transition to a low-carbon future in order to address climate change. The selection and siting of renewable energy technology is driven by natural resource availability and physical and regulatory constraints. These factors inform early-stage feasibility of renewables, helping to focus investment of time and money. Understanding their relative importance and identifying the most suitable technologies is a highly complex task due to the disparate and often unconnected sources of data and information needed. Data4Sustain help to overcome these challenges.

‘To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger’: the vulnerability of the young lawyer in ethical crisis

ABSTRACT This paper takes as its starting point the phenomenon of young lawyers in ethical crisis. The teaching of ethics in the classroom and the ethos and environment of the law firm have created dissonance: knowing what it is right to do but being unable to do it. In examining this phenomenon, we develop the idea of commitment as a source of duty, loyalty, and courage that enables someone to accept and overcome reluctance to act ethically. Our conceptual framework combines two models: Fineman’s radical view that vulnerability is universal, but ameliorated by the assets available to the individual, and Rest’s four component model that provides a taxonomy of precursors for ethical action and resilience. We consider how the structures and the relationships between law schools, regulators and law firms, acting in combination, support or degrade ethical resilience and development of a commitment to ethical action. We close by considering how changes to the structure planned by one regulator in England and Wales deplete the assets available to the young lawyer and thereby the profession.

Does It Make a Difference? Relations of Institutional Frameworks and the Regional Provision of Continuing Higher Education in England and Spain

In this research, we compare interrelations between institutional settings and regional provision structures of continuing higher education (CHE) in England and Spain. The aim of the qualitative analysis is to identify and to compare country-specific linkages between national and regional policies, legal and financial regulations and their impact on providers, types of provision and target groups of CHE at the regional level. Theoretical assumptions of educational governance, environmental neo-institutionalism, and the sociology of conventions guide the analysis, based on expert interviews in England and Spain. Our research questions are: What modes of coordination of action to provide CHE are caused by national and regional regulations in England and Spain? How are these actions justified, and how do they influence regional CHE provision types and target groups in both countries? Interview-based findings show that national and regional regulations embrace hybrid modes of coordination of action regarding CHE provision in both countries. Specifically, centralised national policies in England and a mixture of centralised and decentralised legal frameworks in Spain impact regional CHE provision by universities, as does the scope of university autonomy in both countries. However, national frameworks only explain regional disparities in CHE provision to a limited extent. Less formal normative dimensions and social orders of university orientations and labour market demands also influence regional types of provision, concepts, provider cooperation, and adult CHE learners.

Animal activities licensing in England – resources to support you

BVA policy officer Hayley Atkin introduces BVA's new suite of resources to help vets understand what's expected of them under the animal activities licensing regulations in England.

Evaluation of the Legal Framework for Building Fire Safety Regulations in Spain

There is a trend in Europe towards increasing the quality and performance of regulations. At the same time, regulatory failure has been observed in the area of building fire safety regulation in England and elsewhere. As a result, an analysis of the appropriateness of fire safety regulations in Spain is warranted, with the objective being to assess whether a suitable level of fire safety is currently being delivered. Three basic elements must be considered in such analysis: the legal and regulatory framework, the level of fire risk/safety of buildings that is expected and the level which actually results, and a suitable method of analysis. The focus of this paper is creating a legal and regulatory framework, in particular with respect to fire safety in buildings. Components of an ”ideal” building regulatory framework to adequately control fire risk are presented, the existing building regulatory framework is summarized, and an analysis of the gaps between the ideal and the existing systems is presented. It is concluded that the gaps between the ideal and the existing framework are significant, and that the current fire safety regulations are not appropriate for assuring delivery of the intended level of fire risk mitigation.

Charging of overseas visitors in England and universal health coverage: a cross-sectional analysis of NHS trusts.

In 2017, new regulations in England introduced upfront charging for non-urgent care within the National Health Service (NHS). Individuals from outside the European Economic Area who have not paid the immigration surcharge are chargeable for NHS care at 150% of cost. A freedom of information (FOI) request was sent to 135 acute non-specialist NHS trusts in England to create a database of overseas visitors charges. This was analysed using multiple linear regression to explore the relationship between sex, age, nationality, ethnicity, urgency and the cost of healthcare. Of 135 acute non-specialist trusts in England 64 replied, providing a data set of 13484 patients. Women were found to be invoiced higher amounts than men (P=0.002). Patients were more likely to be women (63 versus 37% men), and within this group, almost half of patients were of reproductive age, with 47.9% (3165) aged 16-40years old. Only seven trusts supplied data on urgency, and within these trusts the urgency of treatment was significantly related to cost, with the most urgent (immediately necessary) treatment costing the most (P<0.001). This research reflects that that migrant women, and particularly undocumented women, are disproportionately impacted by the NHS charging policies in England.

Incentivizing Regulatory Participation: Effectiveness of a Fundraising Levy

AbstractIn the absence of a statutory instrument to enforce payment of a regulatory fee, regulators must rely on a combination of “carrots” and “sticks” to encourage financial contributions by the organizations they oversee. In contrast to studies of public funding of nonprofits, this article empirically evaluates the effectiveness of a government policy to rely on nonprofit funding of statutory regulation. The authors exploit a sharp discontinuity in the eligibility threshold for charities contributing to the new Fundraising Regulator in England and Wales to estimate a causal effect of the levy on participation. The article shows that the regulator's threat to “name and shame” was effective at incentivizing regulatory participation and generating income, but it raises some concerns about the long‐term viability of this approach. The results are significant at a time when many jurisdictions are considering how best to fund the regulation of nonprofits.

Regulation, Registration and Social Work: An International Comparison

Abstract The anticipated change of social work regulator in England from the Health and Care Professions Council to Social Work England in 2019 will herald the third, national regulator in seven years for the social work profession. Social Work England will be a new, bespoke, professionally specific regulator established as a non-departmental public body with a primary objective to protect the public. Looking globally, we can observe different approaches to the regulation of the social work profession—and many different stages of the profession’s regulatory journey between countries. Using a comparative policy analysis approach and case studies, this article looks more closely at three countries’ arrangements and attempts to understand why regulation might take the shape it does in each country. The case studies examine England, the USA (as this has a state approach, we focus on New York) and New Zealand, with contributions from qualified social work authors located within each country. We consider that there are three key elements to apply to analysis: definition of role and function, the construction of the public interest and the attitude to risk.

Incomplete Law - A Conceptual and Analytical Framework and its Application to the Evolution of Financial Market Regulation

This paper develops a conceptual framework for the analysis of legal institutions. It argues that law is inherently incomplete and that the incompleteness of law has a profound impact on the design of lawmaking and law enforcement institutions. When law is incomplete, residual lawmaking powers must be allocated; and enforcement agents have to be vested with law enforcement powers. The optimal allocation of lawmaking and law enforcement powers under incomplete law is analyzed with a focus on the legislature, regulators and courts as possible lawmakers, and courts as well as regulators as possible law enforcers. The timing and process of lawmaking and law enforcement differs across these agents. Legislatures are ex ante, courts are ex post lawmakers, regulators have combine ex ante and ex post lawmaking functions. Courts are reactive law enforcers, while regulators are proactive law enforcers in that - unlike courts - they can initiate enforcement procedures. We argue that the optimal allocation of residual lawmaking and law enforcement powers is determined by the degree and nature of incompleteness of law, the ability to standardize actions that may result in harm, and the magnitude of harm and externalities expected from such actions. Under highly incomplete law, regulators are superior to courts when actions can be standardized and, if allowed to proceed, may create substantial externalities. Otherwise courts are optimal holders of lawmaking and law enforcement powers. We apply this analytical framework to the development of financial market regulation in England since the mid 19th century, with comparative reference to developments in the United States and Germany. The comparative evidence suggests that financial market regulators with both residual lawmaking and proactive law enforcement powers emerged in all three jurisdictions in response to ineffective judicial law enforcement of highly incomplete law.

Yeomans, H.Alcohol and Moral Regulation: Public Attitudes, Spirited Measures and Victorian Hangovers. Policy Press. 2014. 279 pp. $115.83 (CAD) (hardcover) ISBN 1447309936

Once upon a time, alcohol use in Britain was construed by many as a destructive force that led to the disintegration of families, disarray in the workplace, unemployment and crime. To combat these issues, legal frameworks were enforced to regulate its use and create social order. Henry Yeomans provides a socio-historical analysis of Britain's relationship with alcohol and the public's attitude towards it in his book, Alcohol and moral regulation: Public attitudes, spirited measures and Victorian hangovers (2014). His book is a much-welcomed contribution to the fields of critical sociological theory, and media studies. For those unfamiliar with the differences in drinking cultures, values and attitudes in the West, Yeomans book provides a comprehensive account of the values ascribed to alcohol and particular drinking patterns in Britain, with frequent comparisons to other European nations. Employing a qualitative discursive methodology, Yeomans reports on a wide-ranging media analysis of popular print sources in Britain circa 18th century onwards. By tracing Britain's history with alcohol, Yeomans paints a vivid picture of the different ways in which alcohol, and its use has been vilified, moralised and regulated over the years. His analysis of alcohol's regulatory trajectory succinctly tracks the changes in values attached to alcohol use, and aptly shows the fluctuating relationship that exists between alcohol and the British people. One of Yeomans central arguments concerns contemporary attitudes about alcohol use. He argues that modern day angst about alcohol use, and drinking patterns more generally is not new to British society, but in fact is a ‘hangover’ from the Victorian era, more specifically, the temperance movement. Similarly, Yeomans asserts that contemporary measures of drinking regulation in England and Wales have their roots in 18th century regulatory practices. His analysis provides a complex dissection of the socio-political, economic and gendered contexts in which alcohol's regulatory practices were birthed and have since thrived. Yeomans’ central arguments are situated around the term moral regulation, a concept he thoroughly dissects in Chapter 1 of the book. Other key concepts that are theoretically untangled in this chapter include terms such morality, and moral panic. Alcohol and moral regulation contains eight chapters, each capturing specific time periods and their associated regulatory frameworks. In the first half of the book (Chapters 2–4), Yeomans continues to tease apart what he means by the term ‘moral regulation’ and situates its place within 18th and 19th century regulatory practices and developments. The second half of the book (Chapters 5–8) examines the regulatory practices during the First and Second World War, and notably, the decline of the temperance movement. They also examine the impact of age and gender as contributors to the ‘drink problem.’ These later chapters show that despite attempts to deregulate and liberalise alcohol, strict regulations were imposed that targeted the drinking patterns and behaviours of particular groups. Alcohol and moral regulation dramatises the landscape for readers and paints a very vivid picture of key historical moments in the construction of Britain's ‘drink problem’. Drawing on a rich tradition of thought in moral psychology, and philosophy, Yeomans mobilises the concept of moral regulation to showcase the moral policing of the use of alcohol. He provides readers with a compelling and conceptually astute reading of moral regulation and does an excellent job of calling attention to the alarmist frames used to report the ‘drink problem.’ In his historical account, Yeomans teases apart the actual threat posed by alcohol consumption versus what has been portrayed to date, and the levels of public anxiety about it. His work provides deep background and encourages readers to reflect on and question dominant alarmist narratives perpetuated in the media. This book is an integral starting point for any reader interested in a critical analysis of British media portrayal of public attitudes towards alcohol. More specifically, it would appeal to an interdisciplinary audience (sociologists, media scholars, historians, legal scholars etc.) interested in a historical approach to alcohol studies.

Post construction fire safety regulation in England: shutting the door before the horse has bolted

A challenge in preventing fire disasters is that fires with severe consequences are rare. The history of fire safety has been to respond to such disasters through ‘stable door’ regulation, fixing t...