Simply said
the simplification centre's blog
A Lucozade too far
Shopping with mother is getting to be a difficult business these days. She's 85, and gets worn out and bewildered by the goods on display in the supermarket - so many of them, and so different from what she's expecting and can remember. Going to Sainsbury's is something she looks forward to. But when she gets there, she often ends up cutting her visit short, or coming back with things she didn't mean to buy.
Last Saturday, she stood in front of a display of Flora margarine fully two metres square. Flora Light. Flora Buttery. Flora Pro-activ. All in three sizes. What she wants is 'normal Flora', now known as Flora Original, and almost indistinguishable (to her) from all the others. She looked them over, at first enthusiastically, and then with a growing realization that she no longer understood what was on offer. 'Oh', she said. 'It's all different.'
More...Simply understand
Corinne Pritchard came to see us at the Simplification Centre recently, bringing a gust of fresh air and enthusiasm. After grappling with the unreadable though important Working together - public services on your side (see our comments here) it was great to meet someone who's responded to impenetrable government publications not with cynicism but by doing something about it.
Her website - Simply understand - takes government consultation documents, boils them down to the key points, in plain language, and encourages people to respond to them. By simplifying she strikes a blow for democracy. We're fans.
Links: Simply understand
Working together
Public service goes eBay
Last week, the Government issued a report intended to map out a major new approach to public services. Against the background of economic crisis, Working together: public services on your side signals a shift from the New Labour commitment to improved public services based on consumer choice. Instead it emphasizes greater power to the service users, personalized services, more local control.
What is striking is the importance it gives to an 'information revolution' as a driver of change 'so that people can exercise control and shape their services. This includes open-source, real-time data on the performance of services. It also means having the ability to feed back to services and share comments on issues with other patients, parents and local residents.'
More...Making energy information clearer
Ofgem, the energy industry regulator, recently looked into the state of the energy market, and held a public consultation about their proposals to make it more competitive. Several of these proposals were about improvements to customer information - Ofgem are worried that people find it difficult to switch suppliers because of poor information on bills. At the moment we have to be able to tell the various price comparison websites how much energy we use - which means adding up a series of bills we've received over a year or more. Ofgem propose an annual statement giving this information in one place, with a prompt explaining how to switch.
More...Dull or worse?
Form-filling. Bit of routine business? Dreary necessity? Daily grind for pen-pushers? Or something else?
For many of us, boredom isn't the only emotion associated with forms. One of Britain's best sports journalists recently captured those feelings perfectly. What is so awful about filling in forms? 'Where do I start?' asked Brian Viner. You can read his answer here.
More...-
We've been Nudged
Sunstein and Thaler challenge our neutrality. -
A risk-based approach to small print
Should it all be big print? -
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