Leeds City Council officers are urged to use 'plain English' in reports

The comments were made during a Leeds City Council scrutiny board meeting, and concerns were expressed at how consultation with the public will prove difficult unless council policy documents made better use of "plain English."

It follows a report by Leeds City Council officers, which states the authority’s ambition to tackle poverty, inequality and climate change would be "driven by the three pillars of health."

Coun Lisa Martin (Lab) said: “This is a plea for officers to think about the language they are using and sometimes writing too much and writing in opaque language by trying to describe every single detail. It just gets in the way of understanding.

“It is a plea for officers to write in plain language if that is possible.

“There are examples in this [report] pack of really well-written plain language that just gets to the point and say what is needed.

“But it refers to ‘pillars’ and ‘Team Leeds Accelerators’. I am trying to puzzle out what a pillar is. There is a helpful heading that says ‘what is a pillar?’, but in those four paragraphs underneath, there is nothing that starts with ‘a pillar is’. Why are we using the word ‘pillar.'

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"This is a consultation paper going out to the public. If we want meaningful answers back, we need to be clear about what we are asking. It is a plea to simplify and be more concise and get to the point."

Under the heading “what is a pillar?”, it explains that it is “the way we have chosen to group together our challenges and opportunities."

Responding to Coun Martin’s point, committee chairman Coun Paul Truswell (Lab) said: “Some years ago when the plain English campaign had wind in its sails, we were taken to task.

“I think we have kind of lost sight of plain English.

“It might be a wider point we want to make about documentation, especially for those intended for public consumption.”

Responding to Coun Martin, the council’s director of city development Martin Farrington said: “The point is well-made, and I will feed back to the team who are delivering that work.”

Coun Neil Buckley (Con) added: “What’s an accelerator? It kind of mentions it here. Are these new people? How much is it going to cost? And then accelerator projects should be limited to three at one time – what does that mean?”

Another four paragraphs were dedicated to answering “What are Team Leeds Accelerators?"

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“The accelerators will represent an approach – one in which cross-city, cross-sector, cross-organisational groups of people will come together focused on a clear objective or outcome.

“Their purpose will be to advance tangible progress towards that outcome, and to do so in a collaborative way which draws on the strengths, knowledge, skills and lived experiences of people and organisations across Leeds.”

The Best City Ambition is a council-published document which sets out what principles the council should work to when making decisions. One of the three areas of priority includes improving health and wellbeing of people in the city.

In the draft plan, it lists investing in equal access to services for those facing poverty, and ensuring all children in the city have a “healthy and happy childhood."

The second is inclusive growth – the idea that a city’s growing economy can help improve the living standards of those on the lowest incomes.

As part of this, the document states that businesses and social enterprises need to be “innovative, creative, ambitious and connected to the local community they are in”, which also “establishing partnerships which promote equality”.

The third is zero carbon, a pledge for the city to become a net-zero carbon emission producer by 2030. It plans to do this by creating a “low carbon, active and affordable transport network”, while promoting more sustainable food and housing systems.

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