By Lee Kenny, a Visiting Lecturer in Film and Television at the Faculty of Performance, Media and English at Birmingham City University

It’s hard to engage people in local politics. Unlike the attention-grabbing MPs at Westminster, our Town Hall representatives rarely hit the headlines.

Local justice too is a difficult subject with which to excite the masses. Compared to a Crown Court - with its judge, jury and calls of ‘objection, your Honour’ - the lowly Magistrates’ Court is often also overlooked.

There are however some people who frequent the halls of local justice and democracy on a regular basis. Who spend hours wading through agendas and sifting through court proceedings on our behalf.

They are local news journalists. From Torquay to Tyneside, via Birmingham of course, the local news hack plays a crucial, if not always recognised, role in our society. They are the eyes and ears and often the mouthpiece of their community.

They attend the council planning meetings to report on the approval of the new out-of-town retail parks and scribble pages of court copy to ensure that justice is not only done but seen to be done, as the old adage goes.

As people’s lives become increasing bombarded with distractions, who honestly has the time to ensure that their local authority is held to account, that police spending is well invested and that their local NHS Trust is well run? Not many. And that is why the world needs local reporters; to go to the places you can’t and to report back.

Ironically though, at a time when the role of the local news reporter has never been more important, it has never been under greater threat. Newspaper closures and newsroom mergers mean there are fewer journalists today than there were ten years ago.

Good news for corrupt councillors and dodgy developers, bad news for the rest of us. The answer is simple. Support your local newspaper, because in paying the cover-price you’re actually investing in your community.

It might be tomorrow’s fish and chip paper but it’s today’s news and the stuff in it might affect you more than you think.

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TV presenter, investigative journalist and Visiting Professor at Birmingham City University, Donal Macintyre has been selected as an ambassador for Universities Week 2012.

MotivePro, which has been dubbed the ‘Vibrating Suit’, is one of a handful of projects from across the sector to be revealed at a parliamentary reception today (Wednesday May 2 2012).

donal-extra-new.mpg.mp4 Watch on Posterous

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By Bob Calver, Senior Lecturer in Broadcast Journalism, Birmingham City University

So Rupert Mudoch has got through the first day of his evidence to the Leveson Inquiry - albeit a shortened session and so far the most shocking thing we've learned is that he's really called Keith.

Perhaps it was the big build up (who didn't love Evgeny Lebedev's Tweet looking forward to Rupert 'bringing down the Government'?) but the session seemed a little flat, particularly given the firework crackle of son James' testimony yesterday. That left the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt having to defend himself to MPs this lunchtime and cost his special advisor Adam Smith his job. What Rupert gave us was more low key, though an equally assured performance.

He sought to dismiss suggestions that he and his media empire exercise undue influence over our politicians. He'd liked Tony Blair, thought Gordon Brown was unhinged when he declared war on the Murdoch media but had , he said, never asked a Prime Minister for anything. Then as the astute Robert Jay, Counsel for the Inquiry, pointed out he would never have been so cack-handed as to be that blunt in his approach.

Even though there was nothing to cause immediate fright to any politician, there was nothing in phase one of his testimony that dismissed the sense that there was an unhealthy closeness between our elected representatives and the media - Rupert's and beyond. We have seen an unsavoury element of political life being peeled like an onion. First, the Daily Telegraph e-mail promising support to David Cameron and pledging not to be just a fair-weather friend (The PM may be reflecting on that in the light of some of the paper's post-Budget coverage); then James Murdoch revealed how many times he had met Mr Cameron for dinner or breakfast and how things were discussed in passing, and then today Murdoch senior, even as he told us the perception of his influence over politicians irritated him, revealed how he liked meeting political leaders.

It would be naive to believe that people like Rupert Murdoch don't expect access to senior political figures but the extent to which it happens will surprise many voters. After the MPs' expenses scandal none of us expects too much of them, but the idea that they may be scurrying around after media owners and editors for endorsement is at best unedifying and at worst a betrayal of the relationship between us ordinary folk and those we elect to serve us. 

There is an important role here for the Lord Justice Leveson. He has to come up with recommendations for the future regulation of the press. Regulations clear and strong enough to prevent - or punish - illegal activity such as 'phone hacking but which also preserve the ability of journalists to hold public figures to account and expose wrongdoing and hypocrisy. After the evidence of the last few days it is also clear those regulations need to be built on a new, much more mature relationship between the media and our political leaders. We need a strong, independent media free to keep us informed so we can make well-grounded decisions at election times and we need politicians brave enough to move away from the apron strings of nanny press baron to leave us to make those judgements even if they may not like the outcome.

There is, of course, still the second day of Mr. Murdoch's evidence to come and this extraordinary story still has plenty of scope for twists and turns to surprise us. So far what began as 'one rogue reporter' hacking telephones has grown into a beast that has cost the jobs of senior journalists, like Rebekah Brooks, senior police officers and now a political advisor. I'm not betting yet against a political figure joining that list.

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By Bernie Keenan Senior Lecturer Birmingham City University, Co-Chair West Midlands Institute for Ageing & Health

Monday night’s Panorama programme on poor practice in a nursing home offered a harrowing account of inadequate and even abusive care of an older person with dementia. The poor feeding and manual handling techniques and the failures in terms of dignity, respect, and communication are all too commonly reported , and are reflected in the findings of a number of recent reports, including the Health Service Ombudsman Report ‘Care and compassion?’( 2011). In a response to such ‘scandals’ Age UK (2012) have called for the Government to establish a Care Quality Forum to look at all aspects of care home staffing.

 The issues involved are of course complex, and include the stigmatised societal views of older people and those with dementia as ‘diminished’ or ‘lesser ‘ human beings, which are internalised by the carers and indeed the older people themselves, (Goffman 1963 , Kitwood 1997). However, I would suggest that there is a fundamental need to address the training and support of staff in these settings. Caring for older people with dementia is demanding, complex and highly skilled. Without the knowledge base to meet these challenges untrained staff often revert to the mother/ child relationship which is the only model of care available to them, with the result that they infantilise the person they are caring for (Miller & Gwynne 1972, Kitwood 1997). The lack of appropriate orientation or training also often results in a task orientated approach, reducing care to a series of physical tasks ‘ getting through the work’ (Clarke 1978), or ‘minimal warehousing’ (Evers 1981).This epitomises the care seen in the Panorama programme where the older person is washed, fed, and repositioned with minimal personal interaction, stimulation or communication, there is a comment during the programme that she is treated like “a piece of meat”.

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence- Social Care Institute for Excellence guidelines for Dementia (2011) call upon us to provide services that address the specific personal, social, mental and physical needs of people, what the  recent ‘Prime Minister’s challenge on dementia’ calls making areas dementia friendly (Department of Health 2012). A holistic, person centred and evidence based approach is more humane, more effective and can be cheaper. For example, poor practices, such as the overuse of psychotic medication to sedate older people with dementia (Banerjee 2010), are more costly than behavioural interventions such as cognitive stimulation (NHS Institute for Innovation & Improvement 2011).

Objective 11 of the National Dementia Strategy (2009) discusses the improvement of care home care and advises the commissioning of specialist in-reach services from older peoples community health teams to work in care homes, a successful example of this is a Birmingham initiative where a team of 3 Doctors and 4 Community Psychiatric Nurses provided specialist education and support regarding caring for older people with dementia to 4 care homes in the area (Khan & Curtice 2011). Following the intervention the care home staff recorded improved levels of knowledge and confidence in caring for older people with dementia.

The number of older people with dementia will treble over the next 40 years (Alzheimer’s Disease International 2011), and have huge implications in terms of residential care. Last night’s Panorama programme was a painful reminder of how urgently we need to address the shortcomings in that care for the frailest and most vulnerable members of our society, many of whom, like the elderly lady featured in the programme, are unable to speak out for themselves about the inhumane and dehumanised environments in which they are expected to live out the remainder of their lives.

References
Alzheimer’s Disease International (2011) World Alzheimer Report 2011: the Benefits of Early Diagnosis and Intervention, Alzheimer’s Disease International, London
Banerjee S. (2010). The use of antipsychotic medication for people with dementia; a call for action. Department of Health
Clarke M. (1978) ‘Getting Through the Work’. 9in) Dingwall R & McIntosh J (eds). Readings on the Sociology of Nursing. Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh
Department of Health (2009). Living Well with Dementia: A National Dementia Strategy. DH, London.
Department of Health (2011). Health Service Ombudsman Report: ‘Care and compassion?’ DH, London
Department of Health (2012). Prime Minister’s challenge on dementia: Delivering major improvements in dementia care and research by 2015. DH, London
Evers H.(1981). ‘Tender Loving Care?. Patients and Nurses in Geriatric Wards’ (in) Copp L.A 9ed) Care of the Ageing. Churchill Livingstone Edinburgh
Goffman E. (1963) Stigma: Notes on the Management of  Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs, NY; Prentice Hall
Khan F, Curtice M. (2011) Non-pharmacological management of behavioural symptoms of dementia. British Journal Of Community Nursing Vol 16 no 9; 441-449
Kitwood T (1997). Dementia Reconsidered: the person comes first. Buckingham. OUP
Miller E.J, & Gwynne G.V.(1972) A Life Apart-A Pilot Study of residential Institutions for the Physically Handicapped and the Young Chronic Sick. Tavistock Publications, J.B. Lippincott Company
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence – Social Care Institute for Excellence 2011 update of 2007 Standard number 42. Dementia. The NICE-SCIE guideline on supporting people with dementia and their carers in health and social care. . national Collaborating Centre for Mental Health. The British Psychological Society and Gaskell.
NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, (2011). An economic evaluation of alternatives to antipsychotic drugs for individuals living with dementia. NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, Coventry House, University of Warwick Campus, Coventry.

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By Mark Williams-Thomas, TV Presenter, Criminologist & Child Protection Expert, Birmingham City University.

The scene that greeted the police officers on their entry into the farmhouse was one of blood-soaked carnage.     In the kitchen on the ground floor, they found the body of Neville Bamber, dressed in his pyjamas and slumped over a chair.   He had been shot eight times, with six of the bullets fired at close range into his head.    But it seemed clear that he had put up a fierce struggle against his lethal assailant, for not only  was his face severely bruised but also around his corpse lay the evidence of a fight, including broken crockery, a smashed ceiling light and upturned furniture.   

The trail of murderous violence extended upstairs.   In one bedroom with tragic poignancy, were the bodies of six-year-old twins Daniel and Nicholas Caffell.   Eight bullets, all delivered from very close range, had accounted for them as they slept.    In the master bedroom lay the heavily blood-stained body of June Bamber who had been shot seven times, once through her forehead right between her eyes.  FINALLY there was the body of Sheila Caffell and the mother of the murdered twins, who had two bullet wounds in her neck, a rifle across her chest and a bible at her side.

Altogether 25 rounds had been fired during this massacre, which took place during the early hours of 7th August 1985 at White House farm in rural Essex.    It was a crime that shook the nation in its savagery and its extraordinary circumstances.  Initially the police and the media were certain that the bloodbath had been perpetrated by Sheila Caffell during some kind of frenzied breakdown.     She was a vulnerable ex-model with a long history of mental illness.    All the victims were members of her immediate family, her adoptive parents, Neville and June, the owners of White house Farm and her twin sons, Daniel and Nicholas.   The pattern of killing suggested that Sheila had killed the other four and then shot herself in a deranged murder-suicide. 

But then the saga took a bizarre twist.   A few weeks after the crime, the spotlight of suspicion began to fall on Sheila’s brother Jeremy, who had also been adopted by the Bambers and lived in a rented cottage near the farm.    Gradually, the police built up a case against him.    Having been charged with the murders, Bamber was put on trial in October 1986 and after a very high profile court case lasting 19 days, was found guilty.    
He has been in prison ever since, one of the few lifers in Britain who has been told that he will never be released because of the gravity of his crimes.

After all these years behind bars, Bamber continues to maintain his innocence.   And in the subsequent 26 years since the trial, doubts have grown about his guilt.   This case has attracted considerable attention and continues with opinions split between those who believe Jeremy Bamber is innocent and those that firmly believe he is guilty.   It is accepted by the original police team that vital evidence was lost, and enquires and forensic examinations were not carried out properly.    Vital material was destroyed or ignored.   The crime scene was never secured properly.  These are all failings that would not be accepted in any murder enquiry today. But we must remember this is 1985 and policing has changed massively since then.

I write as a criminologist and former detective myself with much experience of working on high profile cases and subsequently studying many more.   The White House Farm murders have only recently attracted my attention but having looked in depth at the evidence, it is clear that Bamber’s new legal team have identified some very significant points which need to be carefully considered. 

Tonight, in an ITV documentary special, I have been given exclusive access to a lot of previously unseen documents and have set out to challenge the new evidence by Bambers legal team and see if it stands up under separate scrutiny.  

The essence of the prosecution case is that Bamber was a cunning manipulator who loathed his adoptive parents and staged the massacre so that he could inherit the family farm and fortune.   According to this narrative, Bamber climbed into the White House Farm on the night of 7th August, took one of his father’s rifles, complete with a silencer on it, and embarked on the murders.   But in this account, two unforeseen problems almost ruined the deadly scheme.   First of all, his father Neville put up powerful resistance despite having sustained a number of bullet wounds.   That, said the prosecutors, was why he was battered so badly.    Second, Bamber discovered that, with the silencer on the rifle, it would have been physically impossible for Sheila to have shot herself  because her arms were simply not long enough to stretch to the trigger while holding the muzzle under her chin.    So, according to the prosecutors, Bamber removed the silencer after killing her and left the now shorter rifle on her chest.   Having placed the silencer in the gun cupboard downstairs, the illusion of suicide was complete.

So this object was absolutely crucial to the prosecution case.  The silencer was the key single piece of evidence in this case . In  fact, the judge in the original trial said that “on its own, it could lead the jury to believe that the defendant is guilty.”   Given its strength however to the case it is important to note that the silencer was not found by the police at all during their initial search of White House Farm.    

Instead, it was uncovered by members of the wider Bamber family days after the police had finished their work at the crime scene.   It was the discovery of the silencer that suddenly turned Jeremy Bamber into the suspect. 

The evidence that a silencer was definitely used when Sheila was killed has always has been the prosecutions case, yet this is now where Bamber's lawyers have obtained evidence to challenge this view.  In preparing to mount a renewed appeal to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, his legal team ordered one of the world’s leading ballistics experts, based in the USA, to conduct tests with a rifle and ammunition exactly the same as that used at White House Farm.   This expert’s findings, based on detailed photographs taken of Sheila's two gunshot wounds is that in his opinion,  one of the wounds was consistent with the rifle  without a silencer attached. Just as importantly, in the police photos of Neville’s body, there are a number of small, circular burn marks on his back. Again Bambers's legal team have now obtained expert evidence which concludes that the three marks are consistent with the artificially heated muzzle of a rifle without a silencer.  

For the TV documentary tonight, we replicated precisely the firearms tests from the USA and achieved exactly the same results. One crucial point which has troubled me is how no residue, lead or gun oil was ever found on Sheila, despite having fired 25 rounds, which would have entailed reloading the .22 rifle at least twice.    Furthermore her manicured nails were undamaged. Although no proper forensic tests were carried out;  to the naked eye no residue was visible on her hands.   So I tested this and  loaded the bullets into the magazine . I found that I could easily load the first 9 bullets into the magazine and use the pads of my finger, leaving no residue on my fingers. And if i did get any residue on my fingers it was easily removed simply by wiping my hands on clothing.

The programme also looks at other evidence crucial to Bamber’s conviction.    One is the fact that his former girlfriend, Julie Mugford, was paid £25,000 for her story by the News of the World.   She played a crucial role for the prosecution.   After initially supporting Bamber in the wake of the killings, she turned against him and told the police that he had confessed he was planning to kill his parents.  “Tonight or never”, she claimed he said on the day of the murders.    But the jury never learnt of her dealings with the media.  
In our programme tonight, we have tape of Bamber saying, more with regret than anger, “I think there is no question that Sheila was responsible”

Even after 27 years this case still attracts massive public opinion and attention . Whatever your view - ultimately the decision sits with the Commission as to whether this case will be referred back to the court of Appeal for the second time.   A decision which I am told is imminent. 

Twitter @mwilliamsthomas

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By Mark Williams-Thomas (right), TV Presenter, Criminologist & Child Protection Expert, Birmingham City University and Dr Liz Davies, Reader in Child Protection, London Metropolitan University.

The first episode of the BBC2 documentary  Protecting our Children showed the chronic and ongoing neglect of Toby, a 3 year old learning disabled child, by his parents Tiffany and Mike. The title of the programme was, Damned if you do and Damned if you don’t, highlighting common dilemmas for social workers in assessing risk and making decisions about the quality of parenting and the safety of the child.   In this instance, however, the theme was misleading as it was clear from the time of the first visit that this vulnerable, distressed child needed immediate protective action.

The BBC team filmed this episode with Bristol Children’s Services, who bravely gave access to allow a wide public audience to see the complexity of the social work task in this one case over a number of months. However, whilst the social worker attempted to establish a positive relationship with the parents, Toby remained living in a dangerous household at high risk of harm. From the beginning this case should have gained the response of a professional strategy meeting with the police child abuse investigation team and other agencies enabling the implementation of an immediate protection plan. Such was the degree of neglect and unexplained bruising that Toby should not have had to wait for the social work assessment of his parents or the several months before a child protection conference was convened. Although the paediatrician stated the bruises were unexplained and then not consistent with an explanation provided, it was clear that a criminal offence may have occurred, yet the investigation was being undertaken by social workers and not police child protection officers.

It is not commonly known that 30% of child deaths from abuse are from neglect and also neglect must be notified to the police because it is actually a crime under the 1933 Children and Young Person’s Act. Although prosecution would have been unlikely, and in fact would have been unhelpful, the police could have removed Toby under police powers of protection for 72 hours to a safe environment to allow some initial inquires and background checks to be made.  Children’s Services would follow up after 72 hours with other legal safeguards using the court processes to keep Toby safe with supervised contact enabling further risk assessment to take place. The important distinction between this approach and that portrayed in the programme would have been that, while investigation of injuries and neglect took place, Toby would have been protected.

Toby showed delayed development and emotional disturbance. The flat was in a dire state of neglect with dog faeces on the carpet and no safety provisions for the child. The observed relationship (eye contact, body language, tone of voice) between Toby and his parents raised issues of emotional harm.  The newly qualified social worker struggled to develop some level of communication with the parents and met with hostility and challenge from the father. The mother, while superficially wanting to work with the social worker, was clearly avoiding the issues and on occasions simply playing lip service. This response should have raised questions about why she would feign compliance – a dynamic which can be indicative of a mother who is fearful of the father’s reactions. At one point Tiffany readily admitted to causing Toby’s bruises when she said she was attempting to protect him from harm. Later in the programme we learnt about allegations of Mikes violence towards Tiffany but it was not made clear whether  the question was asked, then or previously, as to whether she had been covering up for Mike in relation to Toby’s bruising.  Confronting the parents with the detail of unexplained bruising indicative of grip marks and the serious nature of the emotional and physical neglect is a skill requiring confidence derived from experience. This case, even with support from the manager and colleagues, was a tall order for a newly qualified social worker. This should have been undertaken by a police officer in conjunction with a social worker; given it was a physical injury on a child.

The health visitor would always play a central role in assessing the risk posed to a child of this age from the dog faeces which can cause toxicariasis and blindness. A health assessment would also include specialist assessment of the child’s percentile measurements – height and weight, issues relating to diet, stimulation, general health and emotional needs.  Following a multi-agency investigation including collation of all information relating to detailed background histories of both parents, as well as Toby’s childhood experiences, a child protection conference would make a decision about the need for a child protection plan under the categories of neglect and physical abuse because of the unexplained patterns of bruising. In the programme it was some months before a conference was convened and the category was limited to that of neglect.

The child protection plan would have required the parents to make changes before there could be any consideration of returning Toby to their care. This would probably have included finding the dog an alternative home with the assistance of the RSPCA who will always advise on such cases and provide a risk assessment.  Although the dog was clearly a significant issue it was not once discussed with the parents that the dog needed to be re-housed.

The flat needed a blitz clean and the parents needed to be psychologically assessed to establish their capacity to change and learn parenting skills. Any return home would need to be slowly and carefully staged and tested to make sure Toby remained safe.

When Tiffany was in hospital, social workers, very concerned for Toby’s safety, wanted to prevent Mike taking him home.  Yet, when Mike refused to allow them to place Toby in a foster placement for the night he was still allowed to go home with Toby. Even though the police made a ‘welfare check’ that evening and the case went to court the next day this was a window of time when Toby might have been harmed. It is easy to remember recent high profile cases where children have been allowed to return home, and have as a result suffered fatal injuries. In these circumstances when emotions were running high, and a judgement had already been made about Toby’s need for protection, he was at even greater risk. An order could have been obtained from an out-of-hours magistrate or police could have used their powers of protection, again no communication or consultation appeared to have occurred with the police. There were sufficient grounds for emergency legal action given the new situation of the mother’s hospitalisation and father’s lack of co-operation and heightened anxiety.  At one point in the programme Mike was seen to be restraining Toby inappropriately and there seemed to be no intervention to stop this happening. Allowing Toby to return home overnight when social workers had decided he was at significant risk, was a very dangerous position to adopt.

It was an interesting chose of both case and case worker, featuring a newly qualified social worker who had almost no practical experience. It was very important to note the comments made by the experienced social worker who accompanied her on an unannounced visit, who believed that Toby was at risk and needed removing. Furthermore the issue of consent is always a difficult one, and the decision to use Tiffany and Mike who did at times present with learning difficulties, did raise the issue of how capable they were to give truly informed consent.

All that said, this was a brave venture into the murky and complex world of protecting children but procedure and policies exist to enable speedy protective action when it is needed. The word rescue has become unpopular and a philosophy of supporting families now commonly takes precedence over the need of the child for safety, which is certainly worrying and does need urgent redress. Toby was especially vulnerable and the team had sufficient evidence to act. Interference with family life must always be proportionate and every effort must be made to consider whether a child can remain within their family but some situations are of such high risk that it is the view of all professionals involved that the child needs to be placed in care.  Toby was one such child.

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Professor Alister Scott at the School of Property, Construction and Planning at Birmingham City University

1. Try on several pairs of glasses:  As professionals in whatever field we tend to look at the world through our own brand of ‘professional’ glasses. We rarely put on other peoples glasses so as to see the world through their eyes.  It is surely better to do this and then overlay your glasses so you can better join up and make connections.
2. Abandon Targets and Performance Measures in favour of a clear set of goals:  The targets by which we all operate and judge our worth rarely help good planning. Most exemplar projects actually relate to people overcoming institutional hurdles and operating outside conventional working practices. Sharing and buying into a clear goal allows people to adapt and change in a shared journey as learning and experience increases. 
3. Celebrate and learn from conflict and failure:  Conflict, disappointment and failure are all necessary and vital parts of personal and professional development. It is how they are handled that is key.  However, current public opinion sees failure as an opportunity for witch-hunts, scapegoats and clamours for resignation which creates a culture that is averse to taking risks and experimenting.  This is the very opposite of what we need to do for good planning.  This is endemic throughout public policy and in schools where children are not allowed to do anything that has risk associated with it
4. Wisdom beats Cleverness :  We are training people to work in specialist silos as superspecialists.   Yet we also need people who understand the bigger picture set within critical understandings of the social, economic and environmental intersections in order to address the big societal challenges we now face.  We need wisdom not cleverness in our resource management decisions.
5. Overcome Nature Deficit Disorder : We are in danger of creating a society with nature deficit disorder as we seek to restrict, prevent and deny people the opportunity to have fun in the countryside.  Children in particular are a key group who are not allowed to indulge in natural play, build dens and climb trees. However equally as a society we are becoming divorced from nature and understanding its value except through media   which is highly selective.
6. Rethink how we communicate:  We have a surplus of information at our disposal which allows us almost instant gratification whatever subject we are searching for.  Yet we rarely discriminate between poor or good information. We also use technology in ways that increasingly remove us from direct human interaction;  virtual friends dominate our global network of increasingly vulnerable connections.  The cumulative effect of all this is that human scale of things disappears along with its contact, cooperation and reciprocity. 
7. Intoxicated by eloquence of our own verbosity  As professionals we use jargon and a vocabulary that alienates the public but also divides us into our own professional silos. We all champion OUR idea or theory as superior to other disciplines and defend our own positions. We rarely embrace and promote what unites us all.
8. We aren’t necessarily doomed: Those of us who care about the environment tend to speak in doom and gloom narratives.  This simply turns people off as priorities for the environment are not on their radar. We have extremely poor PR and fail dismally to get our messages across.  So it begs the question why we don’t spend more resources on using professionals to get our key messages across more positively and effectively .
9. People are at the heart of the environment:  People should be at the centre of decisions we make and, to that end, we need to orchestrate more people-centred approaches that use skills of people more constructively. There is so much time spent by people fighting things which could surely be diverted to more profitable and sustainable ventures. Key is getting decision makers to involve people before plans and decisions are made.
10. Break boundaries and silo mentality: Behavioural change is needed as we are all locked into systems and work practices that make it hard to escape from the status quo. We are on our escalators and we are all looking for someone else to jump off.   In seeking new avenues partnerships offer an opportunity space that cuts across boundaries in pursuit of more fluid and sticky structures.

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By Craig Jackson, Professor of Occupational Health Psychology

Channel 4 will screen a new documentary on Thursday 9th February at 10pm; "an amusing film covering the lives of a group of female truck drivers, working in a male-dominated profession, while juggling family life, domestic responsibilities and trying to stay feminine". One sentence in and it feels as if I've seen this already - but probably featuring a group of similar women doing a different type of "man's work" instead. Such as quarrying ("Rocking Mammas"), refuse bin collection ("Rubbish Mums"), or even top restaurant chefs ("Yummy Mummy"). Of course, such programme titles never existed (I hope), but it will not surprise me if someone points out that I am wrong.

The programme makers have the potential here to make a thought provoking film about a group of working women, doing a dangerous job in transport and haulage, fraught with many workplace hazards and potential health risks. I sincerely hope they get it right, by focusing on the peculiarities of the job, how people (both men and women) fit into it, and fit their family and lives around it. You know, in the way that work dominates the quality of your life. I have not seen any preview clips myself, but suspect they wont get it right however, and they will instead focus on the minutiae, such as how "Sandra" manages to drive a ten-ton truck despite her excessive nail extensions, or how hopeless romantic "Kelly" looks for her ideal man in all of the truck-stops on the UK motorway network.

The producers no doubt defend such TV by claiming it provides the human interest angle - and portrays the workers as real women with real issues. This it may do, but if it trivialises women, and diminishes them into caricatures of the "bossy" one, the "silly" one, the "glamorous" one, and no doubt, the inevitable "butch" one, all struggling to do the type of job that thousands of men do each day, what would be the purpose of such a wasted opportunity. Haulage and transport are among the most dangerous jobs we have in our society, and like many of the jobs that are hazardous and difficult, the workers who do it are routinely taken for granted.  

I'm not sure yet if I'll be watching it - but if I want to be reminded of the positive impact women make in difficult workplaces, I will spend the hour staring at a copy of J. Howard Miller's "We can do it" (1942) who clearly got it right seventy years ago. Some words for you then, Channel 4:

All the day long,
Whether rain or shine
She’s part of the assembly line.
She’s making history,
Working for victory
Rosie the Riveter

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Shona Maclean is a final year Graduate Diploma Child Nursing student at Birmingham City University and is a regular blogger/contributor to the Nursing Standard

At first glance, this seems like a non-question. Who wouldn’t want more time? No-one wants to die.

But what if the price to be paid is perpetual chemotherapy? Having watched a loved one suffer through its effects, I would not wish an extended period of time on these drugs on anyone. Nevertheless, if my other option was to lose them, the issue suddenly becomes massively more complex. Would I wish for more time, if that time was only filled with pain, suffering, and hospital visits?

While it is easy to say that I would be so grateful for that extra time, it is just as easy to trick ourselves into believing that this just might be a miracle cure, and therefore start hoping where there is no hope. I have worked with families who refuse to accept that their child is dying – are we prolonging their agony by extending their child’s life when ultimately their body has been conquered by the disease?

Add to that the quite phenomenal cost of these drugs. To a struggling NHS, the projected £35,000 per patient for the prostate cancer drug Abiraterone is prohibitively expensive, and can only lead to more postcode lotteries as individual local health authorities choose whether or not they have money to spend on it. Heaven forbid someone be started on one of these drugs only to lose the funding through the ever-increasing cutbacks.

I am left wondering what positive outcomes these drugs could have.

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By Dr Steven McCabe from Birmingham City Business School

Today's unemployment figures give us all cause for concern and there is certainly little to be currently optimistic about.

For those of us who have been around for a while and can remember the 1970s we know that even in the bleakest of times there is always hope of change. 
The trouble is, there is a great deal to fear.

Our economy is 'flat-lining' and the historically low period of phenomenally low interest rates has simply kept things from getting worse.

We can only hope that events in Greece do not lead to another spectacular crisis of finance which will impact on all of us and, of course, make recovery even harder.

So, what can realistically be done to create the success our economy desperately needs to achieve an export-led recovery?

Surprisingly we can look for inspiration to a sector once written off as displaying all of the characteristics that seemed to epitomise everything that was wrong with British industry.

Once again we are back to the 1970s when car manufacturing, or the frequent lack of, regularly made the news headlines.

British car manufacturing has a rich tradition. When I was a child in the 1970s every household in Birmingham knew or was related to someone who worked at factories making components or in the huge assembly plants such as at the Austin plant in Longbridge where my dad worked in the foundry.

For many of my class mates working in the car industry was a reasonable, if somewhat unexciting, prospect. Sadly, though, it was not a sector that inspired pride.

Indeed, for a great many it generated feelings of contempt at what many saw as the worst of industrial relations. For others it was like witnessing the protracted illness of a once-loved relative.

Longbridge was symbolic of just how bad things had become; lack of investment made the factory look archaic and the ability of management and workers to see eye-to-eye was, at best, difficult because of shop stewards whose objective seemed to be anarchy. Longbridge seemed to be a factory that was literally 'out of control'.

As history was to demonstrate, despite the valiant efforts of workers and some management (but certainly not the "Phoenix Four"), it was not possible to ensure that mass car production could continue at Longbridge.

Nonetheless, there was a recognition that if you wish to remain successful as a car producer you need to learn what the Japanese had shown was possible; that you can make cars which customers perceive to have 'quality' and will perform to extremely high standards.

Everyone who has studied Japanese production learned that they place great importance on constant innovation and development, obsession with quality control and, crucially, the value of putting people at the heart of the production system.

Every student who learns the history of how Japanese car producers achieved pre-eminence will discover the irony that these principles were taught by two American statisticians who went there to assist in post-war development of industry Dr. W. Edwards Deming and Dr. Joseph Juran.

The title of this blog is in homage to Deming whose seminal book Out of the Crisis, published in 1982, stressed the need for America industry to learn what he had taught the Japanese thirty five years earlier.

The fact that domestic car sales are declining is no surprise. The current climate makes us fearful of what the immediate future holds. However, other economies are doing much better.

The 'BRIC' economies are well known (Brazil, Russia, India and China). More recently there is the emergence of what are referred to as the 'CIVETS' (Columbia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa). These provide opportunities for those manufacturers able to produce goods, such as cars, which are seen to be high value and data shows that this is the case for large volume producers and the luxury marques such as Bentley and Jaguar.

It is notable that all top five car producers in Britain have ownership outside of this country; BMW (who produce the Mini in Cowley), Land Rover, Honda, Nissan and Toyota.

Significantly the owners of these companies, as well as the other smaller luxury produces, explicitly recognise that whilst they cannot compete in terms of unit costs, if the product is perceived to be superior by being designed and assembled by highly skilled and committed workers, it is perfectly possible to not just survive the current problems but to prosper.

So what is needed? As an academic based at Birmingham City University I make no apology for stressing the importance of education at every level. The children we are teaching today need the skills and confidence in their ability to be part of quest for innovation and creativity which will be essential in the future.

We need our business and political leaders to continuously hammer home the message that our manufacturers can be the best in the world. But manufacturers must be supported in every way possible. If we can spend umpteen billions on a new railway line then we can surely invest in research and development and provide financial incentives to encourage the brightest and best to be part of the manufacturing revolution.

This is what will get us out of recession; whatever happens elsewhere.

Originally published on the Birmingham Post Business Blog.

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Professor Alister Scott at the School of Property, Construction and Planning at Birmingham City University

The Select Committee report on the draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) released this week confirms that the NPPF is not fit for purpose. It also exonerated planners being labelled the ‘enemy of enterprise’ and challenged the simplistic and foolhardy approach to sustainable development as seen through a single economic lens.

While welcome and substantive - covering some 81 pages - the report exposed the lack of clarity in the NPPF which creates uncertainty, killing off long term investment plans and exposing a culture of quick fixes and ad-hoc planning. Furthermore, the reclaiming of town centre and brownfield first policies was seen as key mechanisms to restrict urban sprawl into the countryside.

However, there are three key areas that the report fell short on:

1. The abolition of regional planning has created a vacuum in strategic planning. This means that the bigger picture is missed in many planning decisions and it is important to realise that local authority boundaries are not useful planning units - people’s work, leisure and retail patterns cross such boundaries, causing a disconnect as planners create policies within their own islands and elected member constituencies.  The current duty to co-operate is limited and does not address the complex and emotive political issue of new developments that cross local authority boundaries where the receiving authority has a strong conservation ethic. This can frustrate development but the regional planning layer takes such a picture and its absence is having a negative impact on effective spatial planning.
2. The statutory mechanism for judging sustainable development in practice will be the local plan which can be tweaked to suit local circumstances.  The formalising of a plan led system does bring certainty to decision making, however, the resultant zoning and ordering creates a danger that the new or the innovative development will be refused simply because it does not fit in with existing policies. Given that developers are risk takers and entrepreneurs there is a potential mismatch with risk adverse strategies taken by planners. We therefore need to encourage the use of more flexible planning tools to enable more new developments to happen providing they offer, in theory, significant environmental, economic and social merits which can be tested in the field through experimental approaches.  A good example of this would be local food production on the edge of cities. Here farmers could let unproductive fields to communities for local food production.  However, this activity would require planning permission because it is not agriculture (change of use)and would not be an allotment. So it would be out of order and possibly refused.  Section 106 agreements are key here.
3. The final challenge is the formal recognition that there are two planning systems in England.  One for the natural environment and one for the built environment.  The chart below shows graphically how the two systems are built on different foundations and use different philosophies, frameworks, government departments, theories, activities, tools, geographies, areas, and partnerships which collectively create disintegrated planning.  We need to connect these two areas through improved dialogue to maximise development and conservation opportunities. 

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By Mark Addis, Professor of Philosophy at the School of English, Birmingham City University

Russian and Japanese scientists are attempting to bring the woolly mammoth back from extinction. There are very good scientific reasons why this is likely to be unsuccessful. However, the possibility itself raises some interesting ethical questions. Most people find the idea of resurrecting an extinct species troubling because of the Jurassic Park type thoughts which it prompts. It is worth distinguishing between concerns about the ability to safely handle dangerous previously extinct animals and moral problems about resurrecting them. A common moral objection is that the animals are extinct and that to become involved in cloning them would be to play God or go against nature in some sense. However, defending this view is not quite as simple as it looks.

All kinds of genetically modified crops and animals, such as Dolly the cloned sheep, exist. The only difference between these cases and that of cloning a mammoth is the extent of the modification which leads into what philosophers call a slippery slope argument. These arguments work by taking a reasonable position and suggesting that an extension of it is also reasonable. They repeat this process until an extreme position is arrived at but each of the steps involved in getting there is reasonable. Applying the slippery slope idea to genetic modification allows the extent of acceptable modification to be extended further and further. So if you have enjoyed some genetically modified corn recently you have no reason to object to a cloned woolly mammoth. Working out what might be wrong with this way of thinking is certainly tricky and quite possibly a mammoth task!

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Beverley Nielsen, Director of Employer Engagement at Birmingham City University

The government’s commitment to credit easing, loan guarantees for SMEs, additional infrastructure investment and increasing the Regional Growth Fund, together with the creation of a 100 per cent capital allowance for the Black Country and above the line R&D tax credits for larger companies will provide some much needed boosts to enterprise and job creation. 

Having held our Innovation Hub for a Day event earlier this week attended by over 80 from regional businesses, universities, and the public sector, we know how much emphasis is still required on stimulating innovation and design excellence in our economy. 

The focus on high value added goods and services together with brand differentiation are ways that we can build additional market share both at home and abroad.  It is up to us now to build on the ‘Chancellor’s Plan A Plus’ to deliver for our region. It is plain that we need to coordinate more of our efforts across the public and private sectors.

 Only by pulling together to drive synergies through the skills and knowledge transfer desperately required will we create the opportunities for entrepreneurial regeneration of our economy.  Birmingham City University realises the lead role that the higher education sector needs to take here and we are ready to play our part.  

In launching IDEA Birmingham - the Birmingham City University-led business think-tank - we are keen to showcase the abundance of innovation and design excellence already being produced in our region. 

As a university-business collaboration IDEA Birmingham is a membership partnership being spearheaded by Birmingham City University with Aston and Staffordshire Universities. It aims to encourage design and knowledge transfer to drive innovation, job and wealth creation as well as graduate retention in the Midlands.

Innovation Hub for a Day

The partnership hosted the Innovation Hub for a Day event, which was attended by economic guru Will Hutton.

Mr Hutton, Executive Vice-Chair of The Work Foundation, told regional business leaders that Birmingham was ideally placed to set up an “innovation eco-system”, a pioneering public-private sector partnership between enterprising businesses, universities and other public sector agencies, such as the city council.

The driver behind this partnership is “open innovation”, with partners sharing the risk of generating and implementing new ideas that will create new products or services – which in turn will create new jobs. 

An example could be Birmingham City Council’s plans to invest £760million in a green energy initiative to reduce the city’s carbon footprint by 60 per cent by 2026 – and also help kick-start the regional economy by developing ‘green manufacturing’ in the West Midlands. This type of ‘Green Deal’ initiative is being supported by Birmingham City University, a leader in ‘green technology’ and it is hoped the scheme will create 55,000 jobs.

“At the heart of the innovation eco-system is the need to link entrepreneurs into the knowledge economy,” said Mr Hutton, who added. "We need to have the public and private sectors as the early adopter - local government and universities are buyers and early adopters of scale.

“Open innovation would be critical to ensuring knowledge and skills transfers between key growth sectors which included life sciences, design-led manufacturing (dubbed ‘manu-services’ by The Work Foundation), low carbon energy, creative and cultural industries, high technology, caring and servicing.”

Mr Hutton praised Birmingham City University for its leadership in hosting the Idea Birmingham gathering.

The event was chaired by Birmingham City University’s Pro-Chancellor and Deputy Chairman Vic Cocker CBE, and those attending included Jerry Blackett, Chief Executive, Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Group, Dr David Hardman MBE, CEO of Birmingham Science Park Aston and William McGrath, Group CEO of AGA Rangemaster plc.

• IDEA Birmingham focuses on encouraging entrepreneurial design and innovation across the region

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Prof Darren Newbury, Professor of Photography

I have recently curated an exhibition of photographs now on show at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford – People Apart:  Cape Town Survey 1952.

I selected the photographs from the extensive archive of Bryan Heseltine (1923-2008) whose work has not been exhibited for fifty years.   Their discovery was one of those serendipitous moments.  I came across twenty-five original exhibition prints in April 2009 when Hermione Harris, an Africanist scholar herself, approached me after I’d given a talk at a Museum of London seminar.  She had salvaged the prints whilst working at the South African Institute of Race Relations in the 1960s and had kept them in London ever since. Neither of us knew anything about the photographer.  But some detective work led me to the family and a treasure trove of negatives and I have been extending my research on them from there.

Heseltine grew up in the Eastern Cape, was educated in the UK at Dartington Hall School in the late 1930s but then returned to South Africa in 1940, where he eventually established his own photographic business.   In the early 1950s Cape Town was a city in the midst of profound transformation. Added to the social challenges of rapid urbanisation were South Africa’s unique set of political tensions and conflicts. The Nationalist Party, elected in 1948, was just beginning to implement its policy of apartheid, which extended existing segregation with the ultimate aim of a society based on total racial separation.

See the full gallery on Posterous

The images selected for the exhibition offer a glimpse into the lives of South Africans who would feel the full force of apartheid through the 1950s and beyond. They were made in the late 1940s and early 1950s and provide a rich and intimate description of life in a number of townships and areas of the city: Windermere, the Bo-Kaap, District Six, Langa and Nyanga. The photographs belie the official image projected by the South African government. They show some of the dreadful housing conditions that existed on the periphery of the city, but also testify to the vibrancy of social and cultural life, including the work of street craftsmen, beer brewing, music and dance. The collection also includes some remarkably intimate portraits, illustrating the diverse styles and identities of Cape Town’s inhabitants.   I include a link here to the BBC web site where I have provided commentary on some of the images. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-14150859

One of my aims for the exhibition was to draw attention to the history of the images and how they were taken up, first by the South African Institute of Race Relations, in the cause of social reform and campaigns for better housing for some of the city’s poorest inhabitants, Later, in England, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, brought the work into the ambit of the emerging anti-apartheid movement. This was an early attempt to find a visual language with which to represent apartheid South Africa to a British public.

Underlying the exhibition is the question of what it means for both British and South African audiences to look at the images now, in the post-apartheid era.  I recently gave a talk at the Museum as part of their Saturday Spotlight series.  I find it interesting to hear responses to the photographs, as much from non-specialists reacting to the human quality of the images as from those with a specific interest in questions of technique or historical context.

Together with the Museum’s Curator of Photographs Chris Morton, I have organised a symposium which is taking place on Wednesday 7 December.  We will be joined by speakers from the USA and the Netherlands and will be considering a wider range of African photographic archives and practices, from documentary and official image-making to vernacular forms and artistic re-interpretation.  Contributors will explore strategies for engaging with the diversity of African photographic archives from the perspectives of research and practice, including the representation of photographs from the colonial past for contemporary audiences.

Attendance at both the exhibition and the symposium is free of charge.  Places for the symposium are filling up quickly but if you would like to attend please register via email: christopher.morton@prm.ox.ac.uk.

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By Bob Calver, Senior Lecturer in Broadcast Journalism, Birmingham City University

Found myself on BBC WM shortly before James Murdoch's latest appearance before the House of Commons Culture Media and Sport committee. So as he prepared for another session of questions about what he did or didn't know about phone hacking I was being asked if I missed the News of the World.

It was a question to which I hadn't given much (if any) thought since the paper closed until WM called to set up the interview. That lack of consideration might immediately suggest the NoW's passing had left me unmoved but on reflection  - go on, ask yourself the same question - I was left with the inescapable feeling that without it around something important was missing.

I don't mean there was a gap next to the Sunday morning marmalade pot, largely because I can't remember the last time I bought the News of the World (no, not even 'just for the football') but on two levels the hole left by its demise has not been filled. First there's the matter of sales. The Mail on Sunday may have just reported an increase in circulation and the other tabloids - Sunday Mirror, People, and Daily Star on Sunday - may also have seen some benefit in the short term but overall there are fewer people reading Sunday papers. For the missing million - for that's about what the number is - nothing has replaced the 'Screws'.

More importantly, I think, is the investigative reporting deficit. I know much of it was tacky - I don't much care in what language Max Mosley likes his bottom spanked - but it did have a track record of exposing wrongdoing that needed to be exposed. You need look no further than the case of the Pakistani cricketers fixing case to see that. None of this excuses what seems to have been a culture of overstepping the bounds of acceptable behaviour but it does raise an important issue as Lord Leveson sets out on his inquiry into the role of the police and the press in 'hackgate'.

What he finds and whatever shape the regulation of the press takes in the future it is imperative that nothing is done to further hamper journalists' legitimate pursuit of stories that are genuinely in the public interest. Maybe there's nothing to worry about but in The Times today Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls, reflects on the decrease in cases in which someone is seeking a privacy order to prevent publication of a story. "Possibly it is because newspapers, post phone hacking, have been rather careful in not engaging in controversial stories," he says. Of course there are other reasons but we don't need an over-cautions press. We especially don't need it when elsewhere today Lord Patten is reported in the Guardian as saying' the BBC is unable to conduct investigations into some of the most important stories of the day – including phone hacking – if they could be construed as having a political bias.'

I think I might be missing the NoW just a little more today.

Reposted from : http://bobcalver.blogspot.com/2011/11/found-myself-on-bbc-wm-before-james.html

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Professor Julian Killingley Director of the Centre for American Legal Studies - Faculty of Education, Law & Social Sciences

A British law professor is once again taking on the American legal system by challenging the convictions of two juveniles who face a life in prison without ever having a hope of being freed.

Julian Killingly, Professor of American Public Law at Birmingham City University‘s Centre for American Legal Studies, is involved in two cases where the juvenile defendants, both convicted of homicide, were sentenced to terms of life imprisonment without possibility of parole (LWOP).  Prof Killingley believes this type of draconian sentencing is in breach of international human rights. 

Prof Killingley said: “On November 7th 2011 the US Supreme Court agreed to review the legality of the sentences in two cases involving juvenile defendants. Both cases involved homicide convictions where 14-year-old juvenile defendants were sentenced to terms of life imprisonment without possibility of parole (LWOP).

“In 2009 I facilitated the writing of an amicus curiae brief in two cases from Florida which involved the imposition of LWOP sentences on juveniles for non-homicide offences. Graham v Florida involved a 17-year-old convicted of a third armed burglary of a dwelling and Sullivan v Florida involved a 12-year-old convicted of rape.  The brief was written on behalf of the Bar of England and Wales and the Law Society of England and Wales Human Rights Committees and involved close collaboration with Mark George QC and solicitor Hannah Gorman both based in Manchester, the Law Society’s Human Rights adviser Courtenany Barklem, and Professor Connie de la Vega of  the University of San Francisco School of Law.

“In 2010 the US Supreme Court gave its decisions in the Graham and Sullivan cases and decided that attempts to impose LWOP sentences on juveniles for non-homicide offences violated the 8th Amendment and amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.  That left open the question whether states could impose LWOP on juveniles for homicides.  Now that the Court has decided to examine this question in the Miller and Jackson cases, Professor Killingley has again reassembled the team that worked on the amicus brief in Graham and Sullivan with a view to making representations to the US Supreme Court urging it to declare the imposition of LWOP on juveniles for homicide to be a prohibited cruel and unusual punishment.

“Their brief will argue that the imposition of such sentences is a violation of international human rights law and is out of step with the practice of all other common law countries. Although a number of countries permit the imposition of life sentences on juvenile defendants, all allow for the possibility of parole at some future date.“

Professor Killingley will call upon students at Birmingham City University School of Law to conduct research for the team, verify authorities and assist with drafting sections of the brief.  The work will be done by students as part of their degree and will be given academic credit.

It is anticipated that the brief will be filed with the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC by mid-December with a decision likely in June or July 2012.

Background

In Miller v Alabama, 14-year-old  Evan Miller beat Cole Cannon repeatedly with his fists, then with a baseball bat before setting his trailer home on fire and leaving him to die. Miller and another juvenile had initially been looking for drugs in Miller’s home but then got him drunk and robbed him of a little over $300. Cannon regained consciousness when Miller attempted to replace his wallet and a fatal fight ensued. Miller was convicted and sentenced to LWOP – the law in Alabama permitted no other sentence for a juvenile convicted of what would be capital homicide for an adult.

In Jackson v Hobbs, 14-year-old Kuntrell Jackson and two other boys discussed the possibility of robbing a video store. It later became clear that one boy was armed with a shotgun. The two older boys entered the store and began robbing it – Jackson initially remained outside the store. When the store clerk argued with the robbers, Jackson entered the store and was present when one of the older boys shot the store clerk dead. Jackson was convicted of felony murder even though he was not armed and had neither planned murder nor fired the fatal shot. Jackson was convicted and sentenced to LWOP – the law in Arkansas permitted no other sentence for a juvenile convicted of felony murder.

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Prof. Gregory Sporton MA PhD, Professor of Digital Creativity

In the late nineties, Nicholas Negroponte, found himself staring at bottles of mineral water on the conference tables he was spending so much of his time sitting around.  Negroponte, of Wired fame, MIT Media Lab, tech entrepreneur and one of digital technology’s most enthusiastic boosters, wondered how it was that a large, heavy object like this could be demanded and arrive so easily from a remote French village, when the intangible bits he was working with were struggling to find ways of distributing themselves and turning a profit.  Negroponte, an energetic booster of the world of bits, believed in their possibilities as an alternative growth strategy for developed economies, and convinced large numbers of investors that this was the future.  He was stoking up a bits-based economic bubble, that became the Dotcom crash. 

He recognised the difference between a trade based on commodities to one based on invisibles, but failed, like so many others in the nineties, to understand the flaws of an economic system based on the potential that the bits might be worth something.  It was a question of trust.  The businessmen whose models so confused Negroponte in their efficient capacity to distribute heavy, if commonplace, commodities across the world, did not yet believe that the exchange of bits contained within it the potential to support the global economy without the hassle of trading actual things. 

Knowing the potential of the technology was one thing; converting this into business models that would turn a profit was another, but also crucial in attracting the investment required to bring the technology to a market.  The diverting of resources into this new market could be a key component of future affluence, if only we could find a way to believe in the story of how bits could change who we are and what we have.

In the decade that has followed, the technology industries have come to dominate our thinking about economic growth.  Governments and industries have been taught to put their faith (and their money) into technology projects.  Individuals have created businesses (and sometimes fortunes) on their exchange of bits in a so-called knowledge economy.  The ambitious failures of technology have rarely hampered the insistence on this story of economic development, a world without things, an economy based on delivery systems of information. 

It is time for a critical look at the validity of the claims of technology to have brought us the improvements they have promised.  This is especially true since our technology-driven failure in the financial markets. The most evolved part of the bits based economy, where obscure financial instruments are possible because of the capacity for their creation and redistribution of their risk could be conducted on the global scale provided by the Internet, the free flowing market for capital has failed.  Ultimately, as I will argue in my lecture on November the 1st, this is because for all the cleverness of digital technology and its astonishing ability to create a apparently connected world, the human imagination can’t yet extend itself to truly believe in the value of bits.

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Professor Alister Scott at the School of Property, Construction and Planning at Birmingham City University

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Professor Alister Scott at the School of Property, Construction and Planning at Birmingham City University said:

I must write to convey my increasing concern at the polarised debate between respective elements of the conservation and development lobby over the current planning reforms. The key message is being lost in that whilst the CLG produce their NPPF framework as a blueprint for planning policy alongside and localism bill, Defra produce their 202 Biodiversity strategy as a blueprint for land use policy building on the National Ecosystem approach.

Yet within each area there is scarcely any connection made between them This divide between Defra and CLG expressed historically as between planning and the countryside is at the heart of the current furore. The opportunity is there to fuse these respective ideas in ONE coherent policy. Such developments would ensure that there is a proper connection between policy for countryside and towns and an environmental ethic that means that development is not a short term fix.

Of course some people like to maintain such divides but the loser is the economy , the environment and society. Such separate policy silos plays into the hands s of those who are currently hijacking the NPPF debate.

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Professor David Roberts, Head of the School of English at Birmingham City University

Over the past few years Jo Birch in RIES has been working her socks off promoting the University's contribution to Birmingham's artistic and cultural scene. She was the mastermind behind the New Generation Arts Festival, which saw students and graduates from across the University joining forces in a huge range of original projects, from plays in Millennium Point to exhbitions in a pink inflatable house in Centenary Square. On September 14th 2011 she took on an equally impressive challenge by bringing together Birmingham's cultural leaders for a conference at the Conservatoire. The University played host to a gathering of creative people from the major institutions and from the city's dynamic festival scene: from the CBSO and Royal Ballet to the Fierce Festival and Capsule. After some presentations in the morning, I chaired a session on how we persuade ambassadors for the city to get more familiar with Birmingham's arts scene. Creative people being what they are, we decided to strip the question back to reveal some underlying issues. We live in challenging times. There's a need for a new kind of arts leadership in the city, with central planning replaced by a collaborative approach that stresses creativity and content for their own sake. We need to acquaint our business associates with the cultural dimension of the city: what it means to develop quality of life, what it takes to support the arts effectively. We need to think about how the University can play its part as a broker, as a source of ideas for new funding streams, and as an educator of the next generation of artists and audiences. It was exciting to talk through the issues and to feel a shared understanding emerging from the gloom that's come of so much financial bad news.

By the end, we had the sense not just that there was a new way forward based on collaborative working, but that our University has a huge role to play in making it happen. As the leading arts educator in the region, we have everything to gain from joining forces with the leading arts providers. I felt more than ever that this is one those qualities that makes our University so rich in potential.

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