New guide aims to jettison jargon

Harrogate Borough Council has developed a “guide to plain English” in an attempt to iron out confusing terminology from its literature.

The communications and media manager, Lynne Mee, admitted that the authority has faced criticism from the public and parish councils about its written communications.

She added: “Improving our written communications will bring benefit both to the customer and the council.

“If people don’t understand what we say to them then they may have to contact us again, putting extra cost on both the customer and the council. There are reputation issues for the council too with parish councils continuing to be critical of some of our written work.”

The poor standard of the some of the authority’s written work was raised last year, and a working group was established to look into the problem. A Put It Plainly guide has been produced to get rid of jargon and improve grammar.