2 Bad official language
4. Politics and government are public activities,
and so the language used by politicians and officials should be
honest, accessible and understandable. Yet official language is
often criticised for being the opposite. Groups such as the Plain
English Campaign and the Local Government Association have drawn
attention to the variety of baffling terms used in government;
and the LGA publishes an annual list of banned words, the most
recent one including such examples as "place shaping",
"re-baselining" and "holistic governance".[2]
Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP, now the Minister for the Cabinet Office,
said in 2004 that she kept a "little book of bollocks"
containing instances of government jargon and gobbledegook:
I have what I call a bollocks list where I just sit
in meetings and I write down some of the absurd language we useand
we are all guilty of this, myself included. The risk is when you
have been in government for eight years you begin to talk the
language which is not the language of the real world.[3]
5. The unlovely language of this unreal world
floats along on a linguistic sea of roll-outs, step changes, public
domains, fit for purposes, stakeholder engagements, across the
pieces, win-wins, level playing fields and going forwards. Michael
Gove MP has written that:
Since becoming a Member of Parliament I've been learning
a new language
No one ever uses a simple Anglo-Saxon word,
or a concrete example, where a Latinate construction or a next-to-meaningless
abstraction can be found.[4]
6. We distinguish between two main types of official
language in this report. What we call "political language"
is, as the name suggests, often (but not exclusively) used by
politicians in explaining and defending their policies. "Administrative
language", meanwhile, is typically used by officials and
administrators in their dealings with the public. In this chapter,
we outline some of the varieties of specifically bad official
language that can be found in government, in both political and
administrative contexts, and the damaging consequences that can
result.
7. This is not to suggest that all official language
is bad. Indeed, the Plain English Campaign has found that it is
the financial and legal professions, rather than government, that
cause the most concern through their use of confusing language.[5]
Much academic language, especially in the social sciences, is
notoriously impenetrable. Nevertheless, our public call for examples
of good and bad official language elicited no examples of good
language, but plenty of examples of bad language.
8. We now explore some of the damaging consequences
that bad official language can have. We consider first the way
in which bad political language can inhibit both public understanding
of policy and original thought; and then examine the harm that
bad administrative language can cause to the public.
Political language: distorting
or disguising meaning
9. George Orwell wrote that political language
was "designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,
and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind".[6]
Several types of language used by politicians and civil servants
match this description (if not quite to the extent depicted by
Orwell). Political spin and obfuscating language are used to disguise
what may be politically embarrassing activities or unpalatable
truths. Politicians have also been known to use grandiloquently
opaque language to give the impression that they have something
important to say, when in fact they do not.
10. The first of Orwell's linguistic dislikes,
distorting or evasive language, is routinely practised by both
politicians and civil servants. It can be seen in the use of euphemismsreferring
to "downsizing", "realignment of resources"
or "efficiency savings", for example, rather than talking
about budget or staff cuts. Silky language can be used to obscure
meaning, along the lines of Yes Minister's Sir Humphrey
Appleby. Simon Hoggart described an attempt by the then Cabinet
Secretary Sir Richard Wilson[7]
to use emollient language to play down the row about government
spin and special advisers that erupted at the former Department
of Transport, Local Government and the Regions in 2001:
For instance, when talking about the Jo Moore, Stephen
Byers and Martin Sixsmith imbroglio, Sir Richard said: "The
evidence must be that this discontentment built up and this behaviour
was such as could not go on." In English, this would be translated
as: "People were being quite outrageous and had to stop."
Or: "There are issues about the framework which quite legitimately
need to be addressed."
this means "some of these
guys were right out of control and there was nothing to stop them."
"It
would be wrong to impose on that morning more order than it had."
(This means: "It was chaotic beyond belief.")[8]
11. In his remarks to us, former Cabinet minister
Rt Hon David Blunkett MP likewise noted a tendency among civil
servants to use language that disguised rather than revealed their
true intent:
The civil service always use the term "delighted"
for just about anything that ministers are asked to dowhich
completely takes away any meaning for the word at all! I used
to eliminate it from all my letters and reports. They also have
wonderful phrases like "stand ready" which actually
means we're doing nothing about this unless we're absolutely forced
to do so![9]
12. The use of professional jargon or technical
language out of context can often lead to misunderstanding and
confusion. In itself, jargon is no bad thing: defenders say that
it acts as necessary professional shorthand, used to convey complicated
ideas succinctly. It can also help develop group bonds among staff
in an organisation or profession. The problem comes when jargon
is used out of place, especially when dealing with the wider public,
as David Crystal told us:
Every group has its jargon. There is no group on
this earth that does not have a jargon. It is when that jargon
becomes opaque to the outsider, when the people say, "It
is not just enough for us to talk to each other, we have to talk
to the outside world" and they forget the demands of the
audience, that it gets tricky.[10]
13. Jargon or pseudo-technical language can be
used by politicians and others to dress up an otherwise simple
idea, or to hide the fact that the speaker or writer doesn't really
understand what they are writing or talking about.[11]
Sterile jargon is the enemy of clear thought. This is often the
case when it comes to terms that originate from the world of business
(especially from management consultancy), which have increasingly
intruded themselves into government. We received several examples
during the course of our inquiry, including the following.
Letter from the Minister of State for Care Services
to Roger Gale MP:
Pacesetters aims to tackle inequalities in health
services and in the workplace arising out of discrimination and
disadvantage. The programme is founded on a robust evidence base
and evaluation strategy. Its projects are developed through co-design
with communities and delivered through a service improvement methodology...We
anticipate that most interventions worked on will be for a period
of one yearafter which successful innovations will be mainstreamed
into the work of the trusts and spread nationally. This will ensure
long-term sustainability of equality and diversity into core business.[12]
House of Commons business plan for 2008/09:
FY 2008/09: objectives:
To ensure a risk management
system is embedded within business processes, allowing for risks
to be escalated up and down the organisation as necessary.[13]
Cabinet Office annual report and accounts, 2008-2009:
Savings on the core grant-in-aid delivering the Change-Up
programme, against the counterfactual of an inflationary increase
and re-prioritisation of the OTS budget to fund a wider range
of investment programmes from the 2007-08 baseline amount to around
£4.8m realised in 2008-09. Capacitybuilders is now delivering
further third sector funding streams in order to rationalise delivery
and to take advantage of existing funding mechanisms.[14]
14. Phil Willis MP, Chair of the Innovation,
Universities, Science and Skills Committee,[15]
wrote to us of his Committee's attempt to get the Department's
then Permanent Secretary, Ian Watmore, to make sense of such "management
speak":
During the evidence session with officials in DIUS
we selected at random and read the following extract from the
Departmental Report to Mr Watmore:
An overarching national improvement strategy will
drive up quality and performance underpinned by specific plans
for strategically significant areas of activity, such as workforce
and technology. The capital investment strategy will continue
to renew and modernise further education establishments to create
state of the art facilities.
Mr Watmore was unable to explain the meaning of the
passage. He conceded that "documents written by people in
senior positions can often be very inaccessible to the public"
and he undertook that for next year DIUS would "get the plain
English people in earlier".[16]
15. Sometimes those dealing with government,
such as pressure groups and special interest groups, make their
own contribution to the degradation of language and meaning. Michael
Gove MP has given this example of a briefing note received from
one such group on the contents of a Queen's Speech:
The onion model set out the Government's vision of
what was needed to achieve whole system change. There is an urgent
need for still greater integration at every layer of the onion
in frontline delivery, processes, strategy and governance. At
the level of service delivery in particular there remain significant
practical, philosophical and resource barriers to full integration.
Further legislative changes at governance level alone will not
automatically make it easier to address these barriers.[17]
16. One of the reasons why bad language of this
kind matters is that it can prevent people from understanding
the implications of policies. Will Cooper sent us examples of
language associated with the Private Finance Initiative (PFI)
scheme, which he argued were so ridden with jargon that they hindered
public understanding. One example was a Treasury press release
that started with this sentence:
A platform for generating increased Private Finance
Initiative (PFI) deal flow and reducing the costs of tendering
will be the outcome of new contract guidelines published by the
Treasury Taskforce, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Alan Milburn
said today.[18]
17. While openly admitting a personal bias against
the use of PFI, Mr Cooper went on to make this point about the
language connected with it:
I understand that the subject [of PFI] is a complex
one that requires its own internal lingo, but I feel strongly
that the public simply don't know what it is, let alone understand
the political principles underlying it, largely because the language
used to describe its workings is so eye-wateringly arcane. I would
even venture to suggest that this may be one of the prime objectives
of PFI: some of the terminology is purposefully euphemistic, the
upshot being that the public have neither the confidence nor the
understanding to question its mechanics or its prevalence.[19]
18. Attempts to use language to disguise or distort
meaning can feed growing public mistrust of government. Terms
such as "extraordinary rendition" and "collateral
damage", for instance, have become so well-known that they
no longer serve as euphemisms;[20]
but the attempt to use such terms to hide unpleasant realities
can fuel cynicism about government.
19. Another damaging effect of bad official language,
perhaps less deliberate but no less dangerous, results from the
use of stock phrases and terms to substitute for original expression
and thought. Simon Hoggart described how such terms can fit together
neatly, even if they signify little:
The analogy I would give is that it is a bit like
a small child playing with Lego. Each brick in itself is fine.
Even phrases like "coterminous stakeholder engagement"
have a meaningit means talking to the people who are affected
all the timebut you compress that into a little brick (of
three words), you add another brick, and then you put on another
brick, and your child suddenlyand we have all seen children
do thissuddenly produces something that is not anything
at all, it is just a lot of Lego, and it all hangs together but
it is absolutely meaningless and has no purpose or function whatsoever.[21]
20. George Orwell made the same point some fifty
years earlier about language that is put together without any
apparent reference to thought or meaning. Decrying the use of
"ready-made" phrases that stifle original thought and
encourage political conformity, he wrote that:
They will construct your sentences for youeven
think your thoughts for you, to a certain extentand at
need they will perform the important service of partially concealing
your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the
special connexion between politics and the debasement of language
becomes clear.[22]
21. The language used in politics
and government matters because politics is a public
activity and the services that government provides are public
services. The public nature of government and its activities means
that politicians and public servants should be required to communicate
with people in a straightforward way, using language that people
understand. We have encountered numerous examples of official
language, however, where meaning has been confused and distorted.
Bad language of this kind is damaging because it can both prevent
public understanding of policies and inhibit original expression
and thought.
Administrative language: alienating
the public
22. Good communication is essential when it involves
members of the public trying to deal with the state, such as to
pay taxes, apply for benefits or get public services. Yet large
parts of the public sector still appear to have some way to go
in improving their communications with the public. "Officialese"
in administrative language can sometimes have amusing results,
as the following extract of a letter from HM Revenue and Customs
demonstrates (which, deservedly, won a "Golden Bull"
award from the Plain English Campaign):
Thank you for your Tax Returns ended 5th April 2006
& 2007 which we received on 20th December. I will treat your
Tax Return for all purposes as though you sent it in response
to a notice from us which required you to deliver it to us by
the day we received it.[23]
23. More often, however, confusing or incomprehensible
language simply makes dealing with officialdom more complicated
than it needs to be. Marie Clair of the Plain English Campaign
explained that in her experience the main challenge was getting
government bodies to use less confusing bureaucratic language:
the problem is simply that there are people
out there in real-life situations who are suffering because they
do not understand the language. That is what the [Plain English
Campaign] is concerned about. Those are the things I receive in
my inbox on a daily basis and a lot of those are still about government
documents...we simply want to see people having a better chance
at understanding and using the public information that is available
to them in whatever form.[24]
24. The perpetrators of this variety of official
language often fail to consider adequately who they are writing
for. Examples of this sort of language are often found in official
letters and forms, and can come across as unsympathetic or overly
officious. Andrew George MP provided a letter from the Information
Commissioner's Office which, as he noted, illustrates how formulaic
letter construction can alienate and confuse the reader:
Thank you for your correspondence dated 12 December
2008 in which you complain about the response you received from
MOJ.
So we can progress your complaint we need you to
provide copies of the following:
- Your initial request for information to MOJ
Your case has now been closed as
there is no further action we are able to take without the documents
we have requested. We require these documents as:
- It provides us with a full set of unedited evidence
in support of the complaint
- It is necessary to provide a copy of the initial
request to the public authority when we first notify them of having
received a complaint
Once we receive the information we have requested
your complaint can be reopened.[25]
25. The Work and Pensions Committee heard of
similar examples of unsympathetic official communications during
its inquiry into benefits simplification:
I saw one just recently: an 81-year-old woman who
received a five-page letter about Pension Credit weeks after the
death of her husband. It had about 50 different sums of money
in the statement and was just completely untransparent, even to
a CAB adviser. I doubt whether a pension credit expert would have
fully understood it, yet letters like that are going out without
being seen by anyone. [John Wheatley, Citizens Advice]
I saw a letter the other week asking the claimant
for a medical certificate and it was four pages long
A four
page letter to ask for a medical certificate is not helpful. [Sue
Royston, Citizens Advice][26]
26. The National Audit Office (NAO) agrees with
this line of criticism, concluding that departments and agencies
need to be more realistic about how people read and complete forms
rather than making assumptions about how citizens should behave.[27]
NAO studies have found that lengthy or complex forms can discourage
people from applying for benefits and thereby leave needy people
out of pocket. An investigation into pensioner poverty found that
"difficulty in completing forms" was a major reason
why pensioners do not apply for benefits available to them.[28]
In the case of one specific benefit, Attendance Allowance (for
older people requiring personal care due to disability), the NAO
attributed a lower than desired take-up in part to basic confusion
over the name of the benefit itself: "Our focus groups showed
that the name is widely misconstrued by older people as requiring
attendance by the applicant at an old people's centre".[29]
27. Poor communication by government
bodies dealing with the public is a significant concern, especially
when large numbers of people are affected. Long, complex official
forms, officious letters and confusing requests for information
can all deter individuals from attempting to deal with public
authorities. This is particularly worrying when it prevents people
from getting the benefits or services to which they are entitled.
2 "LGA urges the public sector to ditch jargon
to help people during the recession", Local Government Association
press release, 18 March 2009 Back
3
"From Newspeak to plain-speaking: Jowell aims to cut out
the jargon", Financial Times, 23 December 2004, p
1 Back
4
"Warning: speaking Quango drives you to tears", Times,
8 December 2008, p 22 Back
5
See http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/faqs.html; see also Q 31 Back
6
Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" Back
7
Now Lord Wilson of Dinton Back
8
"Best of British from the grandee's grandee", Guardian,
15 March 2002, p 2 Back
9
Ev 13 Back
10
Q 3 Back
11
See Christopher Jary, Working with Ministers, 4th edition
(National School of Government, 2008), p 65 Back
12
Ev 18 Back
13
Ev 16 Back
14
Cabinet Office, Annual Report and Accounts 2008-2009, HC
442, July 2009, p 85 Back
15
Now the Science and Technology Committee Back
16
Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, Third
Report of Session 2008-09, DIUS's Departmental Report 2008,
HC 51-I, para 7 Back
17
"Warning: speaking Quango drives you to tears", Times,
8 December 2008, p 22 Back
18
Ev 14 Back
19
Ev 13 Back
20
Q 19 Back
21
Q 8 Back
22
Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" Back
23
See http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/golden_bull_awards/2008_golden_bull_winners.html
Back
24
Q 30 Back
25
Ev 20 Back
26
Work and Pensions Committee, Seventh Report of Session 2006-07,
Benefits Simplification, HC 463-I, para 249 Back
27
National Audit Office, Difficult Forms: How Government Agencies
Interact with Citizens, Session 2002-03, HC 1145, 31 October
2003, p 9 Back
28
National Audit Office, Tackling Pensioner Poverty: Encouraging
Take-up of Entitlements, Session 2002-03, HC 37, 20 November
2002, p 25 Back
29
National Audit Office, Communicating with Customers, Session
2008-09, HC 421, 7 May 2009, p 31 Back
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