Plea for Leeds City Council reports to use plain language made at meeting

A plea was made to think about the language used in council reports

Leeds councillors have criticised official reports for being written in "opaque language" that most people would find difficult to understand.

The comments were made about a document written by Leeds City Council officers, on plans to tackle poverty, inequality and climate change .

Councillor Lisa Martin said: "It is a plea for officers to write in plain language if that is possible."

Martin Farrington, for the council, said the point was "well-made".

The report, Best City Ambition - initial proposals, said the authority's ambition to tackle the city's problems would be "driven by the three pillars of health".

Ms Martin said the document had some "really well-written plain language" but she failed to understand terms used in this context like "pillars" and "Team Leeds Accelerators".

Other councillors admitted they too were baffled by some of the language used in the report.

Concerns were raised that the planned consultation with the public would prove difficult unless council documents made better use of "plain English".

Ms Martin said: "This is a plea for officers to think about the language they are using and sometimes writing too much and writing in opaque language by trying to describe every single detail.

"It just gets in the way of understanding."

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The comments were made during Wednesday's Leeds City Council scrutiny board meeting, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Councillor Paul Truswell, chairman of the committee agreed and said "I think we have kind of lost sight of plain English".

Mr Farrington, the council's director of city development, said: "The point is well-made, and I will feed back to the team who are delivering that work."

Excerpts from the Best City Ambition - initial proposals include:

• "The Best City Ambition, while accounting for what is important across all three pillars, is seeking primarily to target the 'sweet spot' where the three come together, recognising the strong interdependencies between them as a means for supporting joint and partnership working across city priorities. In this, it also highlights how working across the three pillars is 'everyone's business', moving beyond more traditional boundaries to fully embrace the concept of wider determinants and embed deeper connections between our key priorities."

• "Team Leeds Accelerators: building on the spirit of partnership shown throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the accelerators will bring together action-focused teams from across the city to quickly make tangible progress on key challenges and opportunities where responsibility is shared."

• "We will consider ways in which, working with elected members and community committees, the overall city-wide ambitions can be translated into more locally focused goals/priorities which reflect the unique character, strengths and challenges of different parts of Leeds."