Councils told to cut the jargon (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Councils told to cut the jargon

5:50am Wednesday 18th March 2009

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Councils were told today by a Bradford councillor to cut out 200 jargon words such as “revenue stream”, “stakeholder” and “incentivising” so that ordinary people can understand them.

Business-speak phrases like “predictors of beaconicity” and “holistic governance” are off the menu if council workers want to make sense to taxpayers, Margaret Eaton, chairman of the Local Government Association said.

The LGA has compiled a list of words and phrases that councils should eliminate.

Instead of “across-the-piece” they should say “everyone working together” and rather then say “actioned” they should simply use the word, “do”.

Workers should not “facilitate” they should “help” and instead of “fast-tracking” something they should just “speed it up”.

Certain words are so meaningless they can be discarded altogether according to the LGA. The culprits include: contestability, synergies and cascading.

Coun Eaton, a former leader of Bradford Council, said: “The public sector must not hide behind impenetrable jargon and phrases. Why do we have to have ‘coterminous, stakeholder engagement’ when we could just ‘talk to people’ instead?

“During the recession, it is vital that we explain to people in plain English how to get access to the 800 different services that local government provides with taxpayers’ money.

“Councils have a duty, not only to provide value for money to local people, but also to tell people what they get for the tax they pay. People would be furious if they have no idea of what services their cash is paying for and how they should get to use them.

“Unless information is given to people to explain what help they can get during a recession then it could well lead to more people ending up homeless or bankrupt.

“If a council fails to explain what it does in plain English then local people will fail to understand its relevance to them or why they should bother to turn out and vote.

“We do not pretend to be perfect, but as this list shows, we are striving to make sure that people get the chance to understand what services we provide.”

Marie Clair, spokesman for the Plain English Campaign, said: “We are very pleased.

“The more jargon that gets done away with the more space there is for plain English.”

She said that many of the words on the list were used to mean different things in different situations.

“We call them rubber words because they can be stretched whichever way you want to and then they bounce back at you. It is a good thing if we can get people to stop and think what word to use and what they actually want to say. It is about capturing your meaning so that it can’t be twisted round and there are no question marks left at the end.”

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