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LITERATURE SEARCHING II: finding official sources

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Why are official publications important to social scientists?

• Output from government and other agencies (central, local, devolved), Parliament and international organisations such as the EU;

• Existing and proposed legislation affects citizens’ lives, socially and economically. This is what social scientists study.

• Important that social scientists understand the parliamentary process from proposal, consultation, discussion & amendments to final legislation.

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Parliamentary papers and government documents

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The Parliamentary processQueen’s Speech – opening of Parliament in November –sets out government

policy.Green paper – consultative documents issued by govt. - contain one or more

policy options for debate and consultation.White paper – firmer recommendations - a preliminary to legislation.Bill – 1st reading – a formality, no debate.Bill – 2nd reading – debate and vote.Committee stage – examined by a Standing Committee and perhaps

substantially amended.Report stage – reviewed by Commons.Bill - 3rd reading – final amendments by Commons.Lords – similar procedure (sometimes Lords comes first)Royal Assent – becomes an Act of Parliament, appears on the Statute Book.

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www.parliament.uk records progress of every bill

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What are official publications? • Sessional papers: The “business of Parliament” - documents which

form part of the Parliamentary process such as Green papers, White papers, command papers and bills.

• Legislation: Primary (statutes, known as Acts of Parliament) and Secondary (statutory instruments).

• Parliamentary proceedings: the records of what’s said and done - (Journal of the HoC, Journal of the HoL, Parliamentary debates also known as “Hansard”.)

• Non-Parliamentary publications: Government departments.• Other documents (minutes and agendas); Statistics.• Also the equivalent literature which emanates from the devolved

governments.• Similar pattern for other nations.

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What is a Command paper?• Information which is commanded to be presented

to the House of Commons by “command of the sovereign”.

• Includes Green papers (consultation papers) and White papers (statements of government policy), annual reports, treaties, financial papers, government replies to reports of Select Committees and reports of Royal Commissions of Enquiry.

• All subject areas.

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Command papers from different historical periods......are referred to like this:• 1833-1869 1-4222• 1870-1899 c.1- c.9550• 1900-1918 Cd.1 – Cd.9239• 1919-1956 Cmd.1-Cmd.9889• 1956-1986 Cmnd.1-Cmnd.9927• 1986- Cm.1-[Remember this when referencing, for example:

Ministry of Justice. (2011). Reform of legal aid in England and Wales: The Government response (Cm. 8072). London: TSO.

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Hansard – the Parliamentary Debates

• Verbatim debates of both Houses.

• Useful for detail which is not published elsewhere.

• Reader can follow every word said about a Bill from beginning to end.

• Reader could also find every word a politician has said during Parliamentary debates.

• Hansard site

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How to reference Hansard

Example:

Hansard HC Deb vol 568

col 602 (15 Oct 2013)

[Electronic version].

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Why are official publications often difficult to track down?

• Most items are “serial” publications (like journals) and are not catalogued individually on iFind Discover (this is the case in all libraries, not just Swansea)

• Materials are held in different formats (at Swansea & elsewhere) – print, web, microfiche, microcard, cd-rom.

• Official publications are published by different publishers. Formerly everything was published by HMSO, now government departments can publish their own documents. The Stationery Office (TSO) is a major publisher, also Welsh Government & EU.

• Fortunately social scientists are mostly only concerned with recent years (1990s onwards) and so much is on the web full text

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Best search tools - UK• Parliament website (includes Hansard, bills and statutes)• House of Commons Parliamentary Papers (online

database)1715-2003/4 (access via iFind Research)

• Gov.UK Publications - from early 2000s – includes consultations, policy documents, bulletins etc.

• Google – site search for filtering results e.g migration site:gov.uk this excludes non-gov websites.

• CANS (Citizens Advice Notes) – social legislation in plain English.

Access via iFind Research

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Best search tools: EuropeEuropean Sources

Online.Easy “one stop” place to

find:• Policies• Institutions• Treaties• Legislation• Articles• Overviews

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Statistical and data sources

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UK & Wales Office for National Statistics and StatsWales

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European statisticsEurostat• Comparative data

across all EU member states , plus other countries in Europe.

• Click on Statistics database on the Eurostat home page.

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For researchers: UK Data ServiceA huge resource for academic

social science research.

1000s of datasets.

Free to staff and students in UK higher education – but registration required.

Lots of support, guides and tutorials too.

More historic data than on other stats websites e.g ONS.

User can customise datasets.

Secondary analysis

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Rest of World

• United Nations: Research guides and resources

• UNESCO Data Centre.• World Bank Data.