200 banned words - the full unedited report

Are we going to apply this

Across-the-piece

and if so will the decision be

Actioned

by a suitable

Advocate ?



Are our partner

Agencies

to be included, and what about the

Ambassador

scheme?



Maybe we should adopt an

Area based

or

Area focused

approach and give some degree of

Autonomous

control to managers.



Our

Baseline

position is one of having a strong

Beacon

record, but some more

Benchmarking

of

Best Practice

might be needed as well as some

Blue sky thinking

to create a

Bottom-Up

culture change


In order to achieve success in our

CAA

we will have to demonstrate a

Can do culture.

our

Capabilities

and

Capacity

to change our use of language may be limited, so

Capacity building

will be essential.

Cascading

this message must be a priority for senior managers.

The changes are

Cautiously welcomed

by the communications team, but the

Challenge

for embedding this into our daily routine is not to be underestimated.

Each manager will have to

Champion

this plain English campaign, and

Citizen empowerment

is at the heart of the vision, as our

Clients

must fully understand our messages to that they can be engaged in truly

Cohesive communities.

Cohesiveness

is a genuinely positive outcome that an be achieved through our

Collaboration

in stripping this awkward language from our formal vocabulary.

When

Commissioning

any reports or marketing materials we must therefore concentrate on the ways that use of plain language can improve

Community engagement.

It may be useful to draw up a

Compact

with our partner agencies to ensure that they are equally committed and that there is no

Conditionality

to our ambition in this regard.

A

Consensual

agreement is vital to guarantee proper ownership of this commitment, as we cannot allow

Contestability

to surface as a stumbling bock.

Contextual

analysis of some of the

Core developments

in communicating our

Core Message,

Core principles

and

Core Values

demonstrates

Coterminosity

In a range of

Coterminous

linguistic concepts.

Cross-cutting

reviews of our literature and

Cross-fertilisation

of ideas should be high priorities for all service managers responsible for

Customer

contact and communication.

Democratic legitimacy

comes from high levels of informed participation, and our

Democratic mandate

is strengthened if our

Dialogue

with customers is one of full and mutual understanding.

The

Direction of travel

has to be one that allows more people to be engaged in this fashion because it is evident that minority influence

Distorts spending priorities

and can even lead to

Double devolution.

Downstream

from this report we can achieve at least one

Early Win

by identifying

Edge-fit

instances of poor practice that can have this new approach

Embedded

fundamentally into day-to-day working practices.

Empowerment

of communities will clearly flow from clearer communication, and our success will strengthen our position as a key

Enabler.

Engagement

With many vulnerable groups in particular is damaged by poor or unclear use of language, and we have already made a firm commitment to

Engaging users

so as to

Enhance

the benefit that they obtain from our services.

The

Evidence Base

for making this commitment is a large one, and if we take the lead then we may become an

Exemplar

authority in the field of plain English.

External challenge

To our decision making will also be reduced if we can

Facilitate

Fast-Track

understanding of our core values and motivations.

There will also be less risk of

Flex

in our strategic vision if our intentions are clearly communicated in this fashion.

Our financial

Flexibilities and Freedoms

are in no way affected by this move, and having a solid

Framework

for enhancing customer understanding could provide the

Fulcrum

we need to lever in additional service

Functionality

and even new

Funding streams.

The

Gateway review

for this plain language campaign will assess progress and give us the justification for

Going forward

to develop more

Good practice

and improved

Governance

Guidelines

That will provide a truly

Holistic

approach.

Holistic governance

will mean that the project board can take the time to engage in a full and meaningful

Horizon scanning

exercise that should identify even more

Improvement levers

and means of

Incentivising

staff to work on developing solid and realistic

Income streams.

Indicators

of success will include the number of instances where staff begin to use their own

Initiative

to expand their

Innovative capacity

and where this can be positively demonstrated to the various

Inspectorates

Who will assess our

Interdepartmental

Interface

capacity.

The first

Iteration

of this

Joined up

approach will be to strengthen

Joint working

Between our communications team and the managers responsible for a lot of the current bad practice in respect of poor use of language.

LAAs

will feature the need to introduce a

Level playing field

that can provide the foundation upon which we can

Lever

in even more co-operation from our partners.
Leverage

of the mandate that we can obtain from more engaged

Localities

will minimise the

Lowlights

That might otherwise have adverse impact on our ability to deliver on our.

MAAs

Mainstreaming

this use of clear language is to some extent dependent upon

Management capacity,

however

Meaningful consultation

and

Meaningful dialogue

unquestionably require

Mechanisms

That deliver a

Menu of Options

And that can lead to effective

Multi-agency

and

Multidisciplinary

co-operation.

Municipalities

have increasingly adopted this

Network model

as a means of

Normalising

Outcomes

rather than simply focusing on

Output

measures.

Outsourced

options do exist for rationalising our communications function, however the

Overarching

need to shift the language

Paradigm

across the organisation means that we should try to deliver our goal within the

Parameter

of current organisational structures.

Participatory

budgeting is increasingly high on our agenda, and although

Partnership working


Will deliver this goal and it is one of our current strengths, our

Partnerships

will be made even more effective if our communication has a greater degree of clarity.

Pathfinder

status is something we may be able to achieve if we can successfully come through

Peer challenge

process that will be facilitated through the communications

Performance Network

that is due to e established shortly.

Place shaping

is yet another of our key target areas that will benefit from linguistic exactitude, and some of the

Pooled budgets

and

Pooled resources

that we have accumulated through this workstream will be able to be directed to assist with funding the initiative as a result.

The

Pooled risk

of working in partnership to improve our communications standards is judged to be almost zero.

Analysis of our diverse

Populace

shows the huge

Potentialities

that exist for

Practitioners

Who fully engage with this programme of improvement.

Predictors of Beaconicity

that have been identified to date are highly encouraging and only some of our

Preventative services

need

Prioritization

for

Priority

attention.

Proactive

and

Process driven

methodologies will allow us to

Procure

optimum solutions where in-house capacity is lacking.

Responsible

Procurement

can be one of the best ways to

Promulgate

best practice across the organisation.

Proportionality

does however need to be exercised and a robust

Protocol

will protect our

Provider vehicles.

The

Quantum

by which we measure our success will initially be the number of

Quick hit

and

Quick win

instances that can be identified.

Rationalisation

Of communications functions will entail some

Rebaselining

And a

Reconfigured

Approach to

Resource allocation.

In the meantime, associated

Revenue Streams

that are identified as being

Risk based

will have to show that they have

Robust

options to allow costs to be

Scaled-back.

Scoping

for the project has been carried out

Sector wise

to ensure that a broad

Seedbed

of ideas are incorporated into the overall plan and that

Self-aggrandizement

is minimised.

Service users

must be our

Shared priority

and secondary

Shell developments

will simply be used to

Signpost

those customers towards clear information.

Single conversations

that minimise avoidable service enquiries mean that

Single point of contact

processes must be maximised across the organisation

Situational

leadership where our key personnel are able to adapt to change will minimise

Slippage

on the programme and a series of

Social contracts

that set out our service level promises will lead to a reduction in

Social exclusion.

On a geographic analysis of our

Spatial

contexts the critical

Stakeholder

organisations will be those who can most readily contribute to a fundamental

Step change

in our

Strategic

position and our

Strategic priorities

will be

Streamlined

down to their

Sub-regional

elements.

Subsidiarity

will be a driving force as we decentralise communication roles to deliver

Sustainable

practices that can in turn support and nurture

Sustainable communities.

A

Symposium

is planned for later in the year that will look for

Synergies

in our shared communication functions and the

Systematics

analysis of our organisational diversity will create a new

Taxonomy

that will have been

Tested for Soundness

based upon

Thematic

elements created through encouraging

Thinking outside of the box,

Particularly from our

Third sector

partners.

The resulting

Toolkit

will give us messages that can be cascaded via a

Top-down

Trajectory,

with the first

Tranche

likely to cover our

Transactional

and

Transformational

language where there is particular need to deliver

Transparency

for staff.

Upstream

from here we expect to see an

Upward trend

In officers’ ability to

Utilise

Value-added

language that promotes our

Vision

and allows further

Visionary

thought processes to thrive.

We fully

Welcome

the contribution that this communication initiative will bring to the general

Wellbeing

of our communities and we believe that the current high levels of

Worklessness

will be reduced by he huge amount of extra time that is going to be needed to weed all of this inappropriate language from our vast reams of existing literature.