Data Collection

Basic techniques of qualitative research were applied throughout the research process especially during data collection and analysis. Data was collected through multiple sources, including interviews, observations and document analysis. Attendance to conferences and seminars also provided a useful source of data as well as communication through emails with various individuals within and outside the London Borough of Southwark. The primary sources examined in this work are the legal sources, the legislation and ca se law, which are easily accessible public documents. An extensive examination of secondary materials, including government reports and publications was employed, some of which are inaccessible and unpublished. As part of the field study which began in September 2007, the writer of this study developed contacts with certain staff and other interested persons within the London Borough of Southwark who were thus able to make available for the study useful and original materials, much of which are unpublished. These include corporate Business strategies, Guidelines, memos and reports developed for internal use by staff in the implementation of the organisation’s corporate plans. Some of these documents, especially the corporate strategies and guidelines were interpreted broadly and in a teleological manner. This was because these documents were drafted broadly and resembled policy declarations which the staff of the council were expected to apply on a case by case basis.

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These Strategies and Guidelines left leeway for managers to implement their contents according to the demands of their individual departments. This approach also enabled the study to take into account the organizational practices of the different departments which were likely to impact on the promotion of equality for persons with disabilities. In fact, some of the managers and directors who provided documentary evidence for this study were interpreters and analysts of the documentary data in their own right, even though their perspectives may have been influenced by their interaction with the researcher who is visually impaired. However, the reliability of the data obtained from these documents was enhanced because they were complemented by interviews and some observational data.

Over 12 semi- structured interviews were conducted for this study. In particular, the respondents were categorised according to the following groups:

1. Staff of the local authority who had responsibilities for strategic planning such as strategic directors.

2. Staff of the council with operational responsibilities such as the various departmental managers

3. Persons with disabilities. This category was further analysed into staff with disabilities who were members of the Unison-Disabled Staff Group and those who were members of stakeholders’ organisations such as voluntary and community organisations. In particular, interviews were conducted with trade union representatives of the UNISON-Disabled Staff Group of Southwark council and the coordinator and the representative of the disabled staff in the Tooley Street building.

4. Representatives of voluntary and community organisations who were members of the Council’s Equality and Diversity Panel.

A main purpose of engaging with these diverse categories of respondents was to ensure the robustness of the data by capturing not only the perspectives of management and workers but also the perspectives of some of the principal actors on equality outside the Council.

However, the range of analysis that could be undertaken with respondents outside the council was limited by time and resource constraints. In this respect, the study made the greatest use of respondents in categories 1 and 2 (staff at the strategic and operational levels) because they were more likely to possess profound knowledge of the strategic and operational orientation of the Council. This choice of respondents did not only allow the study to focus on disability discrimination within the Council’s policies and practices but also made it possible to explore the changes which had been introduced by Southwark council as a

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result of the introduction of the statutory duty to promote equality that directly addressed disability discrimination and equality.

In practice, staff above the positions of managers were mostly interviewed formally using the pre-designed and tailor-made questionnaires. A tape recorder was used during most formal individual interviews when the interviewee agreed beforehand. However, informal meetings and discussions with some of the senior officials of the council also proved very useful in gathering valuable information. During such informal discussions, generally conducted outside the offices of the Council, one could realise that some officials who were unable to talk during group meetings, expressed their views in a confidential manner. These views were recorded and were valuable especially during analytical process.

As part of the field work for this study a long-term working relationship was established with key actors outside the Council. Some of these actors were from structures that had consultative status within the council such as the Southwark Disability Forum and the Southwark Pensioner’s forum while the others were mainly equality organizations from the voluntary and community sectors whose operational principles and conversations were analysed and interpreted as an integral part of the empirical data obtained for this study. The data obtained from the interviews conducted with these actors were crucial in defining and exploring the operational boundaries and limits of the equality duty. This boundary may be set by the political and organisational context of the local authority. The dynamism of the voluntary and community organizations, the partnership arrangements of the authority and its organisational culture in general are all key elements of this crucial local political and organisational context.

The interview method was employed in conjunction with participant observation and documentary analysis as part of the technique of triangulation in order to ensure internal validity of the data obtained. The researcher attended ten sessions of the meetings of the Southwark Equality and Diversity Panel (EDP) between November 2008-November 2009 to observe the conduct of equality impact assessments by the panel. The meetings of the Panel are held monthly and at the end of the panel’s meeting in November 2009, the panelist took

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part in a round-table conference arranged by the researcher with the permission of the Panel’s Co-coordinator and senior Social policy Officer of Southwark council. The conference allowed members of the Panel to brainstorm on how the council’s policies and practices were impacting on the elimination of discrimination and the promotion of equality for their different groups in the community.

The conference also enabled the researcher to capture and understand the perceptions of the panelists of their role and the challenges they encounter in discharging it. Also, the researcher attended two sessions of the Unison-Disabled Staff Group of Southwark council in October 2008 and February 2009. The researcher gave a presentation to the group during the October meeting and was given the opportunity to ask questions to and received answers from the members present. Data was also collected from attending the meetings of the Southwark Disability Forum (SDF) and the Service Users’ conference of the Organisation of Blind African and Caribbeans (OBAC) during which semi structured interviews were conducted with some of the officials. In particular, interviews were conducted with the Directors of OBAC and the Southwark Disablement and the Secretary of the Southwark Disabled Forum.

Participant observations usually refer to more than just the process of observing while participating. It involves the researcher using all the senses, noticing what is seen, heard smelled, tasted or touched.⁹² As a visually impaired person, the researcher was not only assisted in this data collection phase by an able assistant but naturally relied on the heightened use of his other senses of touch, smell, hearing and feeling. This was important in relating to the experiences of discrimination and prejudice of the other participants with a disability. Where appropriate, the comments of the assistant were compared to the field notes and the experiences of the researcher. Finally, it is important to point out here that this study was not just about observing the institutional workings of the London Borough of Southwark and analysing the results at a distance at some later date. It involved observing, participating, talking, checking, and understanding and making interpretations over an extended timeframe,

92 W.L. Neuman and L.W. Kreuger, Supra 89.

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all of which was required if the study was to capture, understand and share the council’s experience with regard to disability discrimination.

As a qualitative research, data analysis was integral to the research process. “Successive approximation” involves repeated data analysis as data is being collected and adjusting the research orientations to the realities being revealed in the research process. The underlying purpose of the case design was to provide a basis for theoretical replication. The extensive use of multiple data collection techniques ensured internal validation via triangulated results.

This case study has supported Yin’s⁹³ suggestion that triangulation has the potential to increase the robustness of research by mutual validation and by complementing knowledge generated by dissimilar d a t a c o l l e c t i o n techniques. Regarding validation, da t a generated by t he different techniques d u r i n g t h e s t u d y w e r e as important as conflicting facts that help to identify biases and complexities. Similarly, with respect to the complementarily of the various data, one way of matching them to produce a more complete picture of the institutional reality o f e q u a l i t y m a n a g e m e n t i n t h e L o n d o n B o r o u g h o f S o u t h w a r k w a s to use one type of data to fill gaps in the other source. T r i a n g u l a t i o n w a s a l s o e m p l o y e d to add causal explanation to the associations of various factors. Here, interviewing and observations methods had different strengths. Participant observation allows easier access to the practical aspects of policy development and implementation while interviews added c a u s a l explanations o f the identified practices. In addition, data f r o m i n t e r v i e w s w e r e more appropriate to explore more complex issues such as institutional norms. T h e study therefore demonstrates how triangulation can address l e g a l i s s u e s o f i n s t i t u t i o n a l d i s c r i m i n a t i o n at the levels of ontology, theory and ultimately, methodology.