Welcome to our blog

Rob Waller: 14 December 2008 in About us

The Simplification Centre is new, and this blog will be a place where we'll react to events, comment on things we've seen, and share ideas we are working on.

We see a world in which information gets more and more critical to our everyday lives - not just more complicated. Some things have got easier - computers and the internet have made fact-finding and communication easier to a degree unimaginable just a few years ago. But the degree of choice, and therefore responsibility, that most of us now have is also far greater - and this includes the essentials of life such as medical treatment, pensions, utilities, phone services. And good choice depends on good understanding.

There's been a great deal of public interest in clear information in recent years - it's a central concern of regulators such as the FSA, Ofgem and Ofcom, and there've been quite a few reports about it over the last few years. We're reviewing those reports and will publish our views very soon. What's obvious from all of them, though, is there is a real need for more ideas about how to communicate clearly and reliably, more evidence, and for more well-trained people motivated to write and design clear information. That's why we've set up the Simplification Centre.