Parliament waves big stick (and laughs) at Government's language

Martin Evans: 01 December 2009 in Government

Back in the summer we submitted evidence to Parliament's Public Administration Select Committee for their inquiry into official language. This week the Committee published its report. It's great to see that they have highlighted the issue of obscure language, clichés and jargon, and the price which the public pays for these. Now it will be for the Government to respond. But the Committee's recommendations for action are disappointing.

The Report picks out the Simplification Centre's point that unclarity has considerable costs to Government - forms that have to be returned and corrected, needless calls to Government helplines.

As for doing something about it, the Committee has less to say. Having taken evidence from the Parliamentary sketch writers of the Times and Guardian, it is not too surprising that they endorse the effectiveness of laughter. As Matthew Parris told them 'If we just keep up a constant barrage of mockery so that the culprits begin to realise that it is not clever and that it is not getting them anywhere, we will achieve something.'

The problem is, we've been laughing at them for decades now, to no avail. The word 'gobbledegook' is ascribed to the American politician Maury Maverick who used the word in a 1944 New York Times Magazine article. He likened bureaucrats to turkeys, 'always gobbledy gobbling and strutting with ludicrous pomposity'

More importantly the Committee argues for more effort on writing legislation clearly. And it recommends that bad official language which results in tangible harm should be regarded as 'maladministration' - that is, grounds for appeal to the Ombudsman.

While fair enough in themselves, these points ignore what Professor David Crystal told the Chairman of the Committee:
'Over and over one sees people pointing to the kinds of clichés that you mentioned... That is easy to do... It is much more difficult to replace it with something that is going to meet the need. That is where the difficulty lies.'

Writing clearly about complex issues is not easy. It needs training, practice, and commitment from the top of the organisation. And it needs constant measurement of effectiveness: user testing of documents and websites; monitoring error rates and helpline calls; and feeding the results back to the writers and designers.

Let's hope that the Government's response to the report goes further than the report itself.