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The article seeks to provide an answer to question about the role of the state in infrastructure planning and delivery and why have Australian state governments been keen to embrace the PPP model of procurement for roads, bridges and tunnels. A contemporary issue is the accuracy of the traffic forecasts on toll roads procured by governments with the PPP model. The "traffic forecasters" in Australia are identified and the broad order of magnitude are the accuracies of their forecasts on projected traffic for toll facilities compared with the actual opening traffic are analysed. Performance is poor (on average, traffic is over-estimated by 100 per cent) when benchmarked against international experience in road traffic forecasting. Explanations for this poor forecasting performance are offered. Finally, the conclusions synthesise the main messages about toll road traffic risks.

The original colleges for military engineers—the Royal Military Academy (RMA) Woolwich and the East India Company (EIC) Seminary at Addiscombe—were the only outlet for a curriculum based on the theory and practice of engineering taught within an academically orientated institution in Britain during the nineteenth century. Overall, engineering in Britain was taught through work-related traditional apprenticeship systems that focused on the 'practical man' concept, supported from 1853 onwards with funding based on a payments-by-results system administered by the Department of Science and Art. This trend continued despite the introduction of modest engineering faculties within the British university system. In India, matters were different: there were four colleges of civil engineering, the oldest, Thomason College, having been founded in 1847. Their role was to provide civil engineers for the Indian Public Works Department. Both in Britain and in India, the administration and management of science, technical and engineering education was undertaken by officers from the Royal Engineers and the Indian Army equivalent, (commonly referred to as sapper officers). This trend in civil/military relationships continued with the establishment of the Royal Indian Engineering College (also known as Cooper's Hill College) in 1870, specifically to train civil engineers in England for duties with the Indian Public Works Department. The comparisons between engineering education in Britain and India during the nineteenth century are stark. The role of the military in the development of engineering education both in Britain and India was crucial. The Indian Public Works Department, although technically a civilian organisation, relied on military engineers during its life until 1947. An examination of the topic from both the British and Indian perspective gives an insight not only into comparative engineering education but also into the civil/military relationships that existed in Britain and India during the latter half of the nineteenth century.

On 1 April 1993 the Prison Service in mainland Britain acquired an
agency status. This is in conjunction with increasing news of
contracting out of services and outright privatization. Raises the
questions of whether the whole concept of agency status is a prelude to
privatization; what the implications are for industrial relations; and
is it part of the plan to marginalize the Prison Officers′ Association
(POA)? Concludes that the change of emphasis to agency status will not
address the current penal crisis in Britain.

The first privatized penal establishment was commissioned in early
April 1992, The Wolds Remand Prison, Humberside. In April 1993 it is
proposed to restructure HM Prison Service as a government agency, rather
than a government department. These policies are not new. In fact it is
a repeat of history, and the Prison Service will be established as a
dual system, as it was prior to the 1877 Prisons Act. Government
accountability and control may be removed from the Home Office. A
privatized prison may be run in the name of its shareholders, and not in
the name of Her Majesty The Queen – hence the title of this
article. Argues that privatization will not decrease overcrowding, but
encourage it, along with potential corruption.

What do "raves" have to do with eighteenth-century Romanticism, or the latest communication technologies with historical ideas about language, media, and culture? Today's culture dazzles us with technological marvels and media spectacles. While we find them entertaining, just as often they are troubling--they seem to contradict common sense, eliciting such questions as What is real? or What is reality? and What is language? or What does language do? These questions, once confined to scholars, have become everyone's concern. Some of the best answers might be found in an unexpected source: Romanticism. Too often we bring the values of the Enlightenment, particularly that of reason, to critique phenomena not inherently rational, such as pop culture or the Internet. This means that much criticism of current culture already has an intellectual foundation antagonistic to it--inviting postmodern arguments that suggest history has ended and reality is an illusion. In contrast, Romanticism, a cultural movement founded in Germany and England during the late eighteenth century, offers us an archive of concepts surprisingly sensitive to these problems. The Romantics were poets, dreamers, and politicians who advanced ideas that anticipated much contemporary thinking. David Black has organized these ideas systematically, and has then applied them to key issues in communications, such as representation, audience, and the information society, as well as to significant debates in cultural studies. As a result, The Politics of Enchantment offers a new theory of media and culture that is grounded in intellectual history, yet as feverishly current as the latest digital device

I. The Roots of Peacetime Propaganda -- II. The Official Information Services -- III. The Central office of Information -- IV. The British Council -- V. The BBC External Services -- VI. Supervision of British Propaganda Programmes -- VII. Comparing Approaches: the United Kingdom and the United States -- Appendix. Estimated Cost of Overseas Information Services 1973-74 -- selected Bibliography.