So the Local Government Association published this week its list of 200 bits of council jargon it feels should be banned and that: “The public sector must not hide behind impenetrable jargon and phrases”. And what fun the media has had with the story – with everyone from The Sun to Radio 4′s Today programme quoting and sniggering at such linguistic gems as ‘holistic governance’,’ taxonomy’, ‘re-baselining’, ‘contestability’ and ‘predictors of beaconicity’. But while the media has enjoyed its cheap laughs at the expense of all the Sir Humphreyisms, another (far more sinister) message from LGA got a bit lost.
Cllr Eaton also went onto say: “From claiming council tax benefit and how older people can get a lift to the shops, to telling people how they can get their old fridges picked up or how to report criminals who flytip, people need to know what is available to them.
“Unless information is given to people to explain what help they can get during a recession then it could well lead to more people ending up homeless or bankrupt. If a council fails to explain what it does in plain English then local people will fail to understand its relevance to them or why they should bother to turn out and vote”.
Blimey!
Apparently civil servants and councils that dare to use ‘impenetrable jargon’ such as ‘autonomous’, ‘challenge’, ‘customer’ and ‘dialogue’ could actually be undermining the economy and local democracy. And under the circumstances it’s lucky that ‘impenetrable’ itself wasn’t put on the blacklist, or else the LGA’s press release would have needed a speedy re-write.
My point is this – as someone that has had worked closely on a number of engagement campaigns for a range of public sector bodies I know that some of the language used can be tricky when trying describe or communicate an initiative for public consumption. However this is an internal language – just like the professional jargon used by every sector in the land. From the building site to the boardroom, the shop floor to the space programme, we all have trade-speak.
Yes the public sector needs to communicate to everyone and be understood by all in our society – and yes the language used should be appropriate to the audience it is aimed at. But in my experience the worst extremes of council gobbledegook highlighted by the LGA is never used in public-facing communications.
But the suggestion with this particular story is that if you phone up your council to arrange to get an old fridge collected you are quite likely to be subject to a stream of Councileese such as being be referred to throughout the conversation as “a valued stakeholder”, rather than Mr Jones, and told that “the refuse technologists will be operating in your sub-region from 0900 hours a week on Tuesday”. It simply doesn’t wash.
Now you might say my objections to this is wrapped up in self-interest and it’s true that one of the reasons us PR-types are employed is because we are considered to be good with words and communication (at least when we aren’t typing rants about the LGA for a blog post) and that we benefit from being called in as ‘translators’ by many of our clients. But putting that to one side, I genuinely believe people shouldn’t apologise for having a wide-vocabulary or knowing how to use language.
Ban the banal and banish the bullshit yes – but don’t dumb down democracy by suggesting that public servants using a variety of words and perfectly decent English are helping to fuel social injustice and compounding the problem of political disenfranchisement.
Using more words is how we enrich our language and improve communication with each other, and I’d much rather people be accused of swallowing dictionaries than accused of building bonfires with them.
Have I made myself clear?
Tags: Jargon, PR, Public Sector
I find myself in agreement with you in general. Thinking back,we alsmost never do business with the Council or local government bodies for several reasons. Promarily because the language is far too inpenetrable and secondly due to the heavy investment in paperwork necessary prior to being able to bid on many tenders. I believe the latter is certainly related to the former via mindset. I’m sure LGAs deny themselves access to a lot of talent due to these barriers.
I know of one rather excellent agency that actually poached someone from the Council simply so that they could speak Councilese with greater fluency and win more business. I understand the strategy worked rather well.
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