Conclusions and recommendations
1. The Department has reduced its total number
of published leaflets from 245 to 178 and is committed to making
an overall reduction of 100.
To facilitate further decreases and maintain a low number as it
develops new policies, the Department should:
- seek to update information
in existing leaflets wherever possible, rather than issue new
ones;
- establish a programme to amalgamate existing
leaflets for each customer group;
- identify through customer research how best to
communicate new information to each individual client group before
deciding whether a leaflet is appropriate; and
- use the independent Social Security Advisory
Committee as a barrier to the proliferation of leaflets by submitting
all new products to the Committee with a justification for their
need.
2. Only 8 out of 20 leaflets examined had
undergone the six-monthly reviews for accuracy to which the Department
committed itself and around 40% of the 27 different leaflets collected
by the National Audit Office across the country were out of date.
The reduction in the number of leaflets offers the opportunity
to improve the effectiveness of these reviews. The Department
should streamline the process, targeting the highest risk leaflets
such as those with the most complex and frequently altered information.
It should also extend the computerised 'content management system'
used by The Pension Service across the whole organisation and
allocate responsibility for managing the accuracy of specific
facts and pieces of information wherever they appear, rather than
monitoring information on a leaflet by leaflet basis.
3. The Department is unable to determine the
exact cost of producing leaflets, which has been estimated at
£31 million in 2004-05. The Department
should develop a means of calculating the full costs of managing,
producing and printing leaflets in order to inform decisions and
developments such as changes to information management processes
and the new print and distribution system.
4. All 13 of the Department's key leaflets
tested by the National Audit Office required a reading age higher
than the national average, and eight required a reading age equivalent
to five years of secondary schooling.
The Department is testing all new leaflets on customers, but also
needs to revise previously published literature which remains
in use. It should work through the existing leaflets, using simple
tests such as those undertaken for the Comptroller and Auditor
General's Report, until all have been tested using customers and
also received a Plain English Campaign Crystal Mark.
5. Leaflets are not easily accessible to groups
such as those with disabilities or non-English speakers.
Whilst information in languages other than English or in Braille,
large print or audio format can be ordered from the Department,
this service is not well publicised to customers or staff. The
Department should research the needs of those groups not catered
for by standard leaflets in order to determine how to give consistent
messages, accessible to all, about where to obtain its services.
In addition, the Department should require all offices to make
physical access to leaflets easy for those with disabilities,
which was not the case in nearly a quarter of places visited.
6. Copies of four core departmental leaflets
examined were available at only 11% of the non-departmental locations
such as libraries and Citizens' Advice offices visited by the
National Audit Office. It is unrealistic
to expect external organisations to hold copies of all the Department's
leaflets, but key information-providing organisations such as
Citizen's Advice need to be able to provide core information to
the Department's customers. One option would be to produce a single
leaflet of basic information that is unlikely to change for non-Departmental
locations to stock and which contains directions on where to obtain
more detailed information. This would reduce the need for constant
updates and expensive distribution systems.
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