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Plain English campaign news articles

NHS secrecy row

Details: Created on Friday, 18 November 2016 16:07

This time last year, the NHS was ‘restructured’, apparently to make sure the needs of specific parts of the UK got the services they needed. Each new area was told it had to provide Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs), which would set out what that individual area needed, and how it would go about delivering those needs.

As part of that, all those different areas of the NHS came together in January this year to form 44 STP ‘footprints’, which would show a bigger picture of what was needed and where, and what was being done to help the patients in each area. The results of these plans and footprints would then supposedly help put into place structured five-year plans.

Bank of England jargon far too taxing

Details: Created on Friday, 07 October 2016 11:02

For decades now, we at Plain English Campaign have added our voice to those justifiably complaining about jargon in a number of areas. Financial jargon may well be at the top of the list of complaints we’ve received, and things don’t seem to be improving.

And with Brexit officially on the horizon (March/April has been mentioned) we really do need to know what is going on with the country’s banks and, in turn, our own finances.

Councils ignore plain English guidelines

Details: Created on Friday, 09 September 2016 15:53

You may recall recent Government guidelines that made plain English ‘mandatory for all of Gov.UK’. Well, it seems that ‘mandatory’ means different things to different councils.

A recent independent report looked closely at up to 100 pages on 191 local authority websites. The findings suggest that 82% of the information checked is ‘confusing readers by failing to use plain English’.

More beauty product nonsense

Details: Created on Wednesday, 31 August 2016 14:06

Have you ever bought a skin-care product after/despite hearing some impressive-sounding gobbledygook? The beauty product industry has seemingly always used hefty doses of waffle when marketing its creams, oils and ‘exfoliating’ gels.

But how many of the claims made about said products bear scrutiny? Unsurprisingly, very few.

We voted 'Leave' – what now?

Details: Created on Friday, 24 June 2016 12:28

The votes are counted and the UK has voted out of the European Union. Scaremongering campaigns and spin aside, what does the decision actually mean?

Here’s a plain English guide to some key issues.

Read more: We voted 'Leave' – what now?

Web deceit gets trickier

Details: Created on Monday, 13 June 2016 10:58

We’ve already highlighted some of the dodgy techniques websites use to con customers.

Shamefully, not only have many websites continued to use them (and, in some cases, pass them off as perfectly OK), they’ve started to use even sneakier programs.

SATS chaos

Details: Created on Friday, 20 May 2016 14:26

You know all about the SATS controversy. Teacher frustration, parent demonstrations, child misery.

We’ve had plenty of contact from teachers and irate parents in particular. And the evidence – in this case the actual SATS questions, as sent in to us – suggest they’ve got plenty of reason to be upset.

Government plain English woe

Details: Created on Thursday, 28 April 2016 16:24

Back in 2014, the Government’s Digital Service brought in ‘mandatory’ guidelines for ‘writing and managing content’. In particular, that meant keeping to plain English principles.

Or, in their own words, from the ‘Writing for GOV.UK’ guide: “Plain English is mandatory for all of GOV.UK. One of the parts most people pick up on is the plain English (or words to avoid) list. This isn’t just a list of words to avoid. Plain English is the whole ethos of GOV.UK: it’s a way of writing.”

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