EXISTING DATA

When researching in legal and policy areas, there is usually a lot of data which is in the public domain, or which may be available if you approach the right authorities (in the right way).

Public information may include annual reports, websites, Hansard and, of course the usual legal sources: statutes and cases (see Legal Research.)

Information which may not be public, but which may be available, includes consultants' reports, official records, files or statistics, internal reports, minutes of meetings, etc.

With either public or internal sources, it is important first to discover what may be available, and then to get access to information which is not already in the public domain.

The information may be qualitative (regarding policy, events, etc) or it may be quantitative (regarding expenditure, number of cases and their disposition, etc).

Here are some steps to consider:

Questions

From your research questions, which may be possibly be answered by access to existing information? Your answers to this may at first this will be speculative, and you may be starting out on a fishing expedition. The information you want may not be available, so don’t assume it is.
Clarify the difference between what you need to know and how this information will be collected or understood by public authorities.

Processes

Clarify policy development and legislative processes:

at what points is this public?
who are the key players with an interest in it? (parliamentary drafters, committee members, lobby groups)
what public reports are generated?

Think of any other ways in which information is generated or reported publicly eg. annual reports, media, ombudsman’s reports

What public forums exist for exchanging information? (eg parliamentary debates and committees, estimates committees or other aspects of the budgetary process, commissions of inquiry).

Possible sources

Public documents

www
library (State, department, Parliamentary)
sale

Internal documents

find out what might be available (via public documents & people)
try to get access

People

Identify people with a real interest or involvement in your topic through

key players
networks (via people you already know, community sector, lobby groups, ombudsman, privacy commission or similar agencies)

You will find some other material on making contact with people at Interviews. In addition to the points made there, consider also:

Don’t presume people will understand your question (get into their way of understanding the issues before asking the hard questions)
Don’t presume they have to answer you

Public information may be public relations

Comparison with journalism. In some ways the way you must work in this field is like investigative reporting. Find out and think about the methods used by journalists. (But remember the ethical implications! See Timeline for more on ethics.)

Spin doctoring & the ‘publicness’ of public information. Remember that most public information is released with particular messages in mind. eg environmental impact statements, Ministerial statements, etc.

Files and statistics

Where departments, courts, or companies collect data routinely, that may be very useful. But remember that they collect it for their own purposes (or simply because it is easy to collect). It may not suit the purposes of your research. This is another reason for clarifying your own purposes and questions before you start to collect data from the organisations you are studying.