Getting our message across

Introduction

Communicating with the people we serve, councillors and those we work with has always been important. To do it really well takes a little bit of thought.

This guide is designed to help you put the person you are communicating with front and centre and to help the council find its collective voice. That voice is really important as we work to put our customers at the heart of everything we do.

We need them to understand our values instinctively and without too much thinking on their part. We want them to feel good about dealing with the council.

This document is just the start of a journey to put our values into action that will include training sessions and the occasional challenge to the way we have always done things.

If you need support or help in communicating more clearly, please let us know. We will see that request as a sign of strength and a commitment to helping us get to where we need to be.

Guiding principles

However and whoever we are communicating with, we should always be:

  • human – the council is full of people helping other people, let’s celebrate that fact and be warm and friendly rather than standoffish and bureaucratic
  • honest – this one should not need any explanation
  • helpful – whoever is dealing with us should have a better understanding at the end of any conversation than when they started out

Think about your target audience

If you stop to think about who you are about to communicate with and what they might need, you will not go far wrong.

Remember: Everyone is busy and has a million things to do – your message might not be top of their order of priority.

Because people are busy:

  • they skim web pages, letters or emails
  • they lose interest in long sentences
  • they struggle with big blocks of text

Remember: Research shows the average reading age in this country can be as low as nine with the Sun aiming their language at eight-year-olds and The Guardian aiming for a reading age of 14.

Because of this we will:

  • strip out all of the jargon we use to communicate among ourselves when dealing with others
  • keep our messages as simple as we can – there are no brownie points on offer for sounding official, pompous or detached
  • write as concisely and with a few words as we can – this is an art form to be admired. Look at the way newspapers and their websites turn complex ideas into simple sentences
  • write as we would speak including the use of contractions such as we’re instead of we are

A good rule of thumb is would my son or daughter or elderly neighbour, friend or relative understand what I am saying the very first time they read my words?

If in doubt, read what you have written out loud or ask a colleague to take a look for you. If they have questions after reading your words, you know there is more to do.

Our biggest rule

Our Style Guide, which you will find at the end of this document, has been in place for a long time.

But how would you fare if quizzed on our rules when it comes to communicating with others? Judging by lots of the material we produce – not very well.

The biggest rule is – take responsibility for what we do and that means writing with an active voice. Our style guide says:

“Always use the active voice, not the passive voice. “For example, ‘We will review your council tax bill’, not ‘Your council tax bill will be reviewed by an officer’.

“A good tip here is to add ‘…by monkeys’ after a sentence. “If it still makes sense, it’s passive.“

So the example above becomes – ‘Your council tax bill will be reviewed…by monkeys.’ “Fun to say, but passive shouldn’t be used.”

Style guide

Abbreviations and acronyms

Explain abbreviations or acronyms in full the first time you use them – for example, Kent County Council (KCC) – unless it’s well known, like the UK, EU, VAT, MP.

Don’t use an acronym you’re not going to use later in the content!

Don’t put full stops in abbreviations – BBC, not B.B.C.

Accessible content

People interact with our content in lots of different ways; using different devices and browsers, screen readers, speech recognition and more. Take note of the following:

  • Titles should be accurate, concise and clear. Don’t have the same title for multiple pages, and organise the content around one subject.
  • Use headings and subheadings to structure information, and always follow the hierarchy – H1,H2,H3 – not H2,H1,H3.
  • The important stuff should go first – if there’s background information that is useful that should come after the main message(s).
  • Links should be descriptive. See the links subheading below for more tips.
  • Always use alt text if you’re using an image. Describe what the image is in a short caption
  • Any videos should have a transcript and captioning available.

Active voice

Always use the active voice, not the passive voice. For example, ‘We will review your council tax bill’, not ‘Your council tax bill will be reviewed by an officer’.

A good tip here is to add ‘…by monkeys’ after a sentence. If it still makes sense, it’s passive.

So the example above becomes – ‘Your council tax bill will be reviewed…by monkeys.’ Fun to say, but passive shouldn’t be used.

Addressing the user

Use ‘you’ and ‘us’ rather than ‘customers’ and ‘the council’. We don’t want to sound like we’re a completely separate organisation.

Americanisms

Use ‘ise’ not ‘ize’ – for example, publicise not publicize.

Ampersand

Use the word ‘and’ rather than using ‘&’. The exception to this is on our homepages – for example, ‘Planning & building’.

Apostrophes and brackets

Make sure you know the difference between the shortened version of it is (it’s) and ownership of something (its coat was red).

Don’t put apostrophes in abbreviation plurals, like PCs. We use round brackets () not square [].

Bold

We don’t use bold – it’s bad for accessibility. If you need to emphasise something, make it a subheading.

Bullet points and steps

If you’re writing a lot of text, it’s much easier to read if it’s broken up into a bulleted list or numbered steps. A few pointers:

  • Try and have lead-in text.
  • Each bullet should make sense running on from the previous one.
  • Don’t use more than one sentence in one bullet point. If you need to, you can break it up with commas, dashes or semicolons.

Capitalisation

NEVER WRITE TEXT IN CAPITALS. It’s really hard to read, and looks like you’re shouting

Sentences should always begin with a capital letter.

Names, places, job titles and departments should be capitalised – for example, Commissioned Services or Content Designer.

The word ‘council’ shouldn’t have a capital ‘c’, unless you’re referring to our full name, Canterbury City Council.

Don’t capitalise directions – north west, south east.

Only capitalise the first letter of a heading, unless you’re including something that would normally use capitals as mentioned above. So, a page should be titled ‘Pay your council tax’, not ‘Pay Your Council Tax’.

Council

Unless you’re using our full name; Canterbury City Council, ‘council’ or ’the council’ is always lowercase.

Dates and months

The format we use for dates is DD month year – for example, 24 November 2018. Don’t use the ‘th’ suffix – 24th November 2018.

Months should always begin with a capital letter – January, February. But we don’t capitalise seasons – spring, summer, autumn, winter.

Use the word ‘to’ not a dash to separate dates or times – for example, December to February or 9am to 5pm.

If you’re using the term ‘today’, make sure you include the date afterwards in brackets – ‘It was announced today (24 November 2018)’.

Documents

Ideally, content should be HTML documents. But if you have to use a PDF (for a lengthy report or strategy), make sure you update the following settings to meet accessibility criteria:

  • Properties menu>Advanced > set the language
  • Give it a descriptive title
  • Set the author to ‘Canterbury City Council’
  • Document properties > make sure the security settings of the document let assistive technology read text
  • Document properties > Initial view > ‘Show’ should be set to ‘Document Title’
  • Advanced > add accessibility tags
  • Avoid using Word or Excel documents, as they can easily be edited and published somewhere else

E.g., etc. and i.e

Try and avoid using these – use ‘for example’, ‘and so on’ or ‘such as’.

Email addresses

These should be written in full, lowercase and as active links.

FAQs

Say no to FAQs! The content should cover everything the user needs to know.

Most of the time, FAQs aren’t ‘frequently asked’ at all, it’s a guess on what people might want to know.

Government

Always lowercase.

Headings, subheadings and titles

These should accurately describe the content. They should be as concise as possible – ‘Apply for a postal vote’ not ‘Information about applying for a postal vote’.

Don’t use acronyms unless they’re well known.

Hyphenating words

This is a bit of an old fashioned way of writing content. Most words don’t use a hyphen anymore.

We don’t hyphenate:

  • coordinate
  • reuse
  • redesign
  • reinvent
  • reorder
  • reopen
  • email

Images and videos

We generally don’t use these on canterbury.gov.uk. When we do, they must be uploaded to the media library, given a descriptive name and alt text.

Any videos we embed should have a transcript available.

Italics

No italics! They’re difficult to read.

Links

Links must accurately describe what they’re linking to – never use ‘click here’, ‘find out more’ or ‘more information’.

If it’s linking to a document you should tell the user – for example, ‘Download the 2019 council tax policy (PDF document)’.

Money

Use the £ symbol – £100. If pence aren’t included in an amount, leave it out – don’t put £44.00.

Always write the word pence in full, for example ‘calls cost eighteen pence a minute’.

Numbers

Numbers between 1 and 9 should be written alphabetically. 10 and above should be numerals.

Exceptions to this are:

  • Using numbers in tables.
  • If you’re talking about a step or a point in a list – for example, ‘Please see point 1 of the Local Plan’.

Paragraphs and spaces

If you’re writing a lot of text, it’s easier to break it up into readable paragraphs.

We use single space, not double.

Plain English

Always use words that your audience will understand – our content should be accessible to everyone, regardless of reading age.

Avoid long sentences or jargon. If you need to use a technical term, make sure you explain what it means.

Legal content can – and should – be written so that users can understand it. Legal terms that must be used should be explained in Plain English.

Quotes and speech marks

In long paragraphs of speech, each new paragraph should have opening quote marks.

Closing quote marks should only be used at the end of the final paragraph.

Use single quotes for unusual terms or for talking about a published document or source. You should link to any references if it’s possible.

Summaries

These should be clear and concise – don’t repeat information already available.

Tables

These should be avoided where possible – they don’t work well on mobiles and tablets.

If you need to use one, they must have a description, appropriate title and be labelled correctly.

Telephone numbers

We break these up into easy to read digits: 01227 862 527 or 07463 347 347.

The words ‘telephone’ and ‘mobile’ should be written in full.

Times

We use am and pm. Always use ‘to’ and not a dash in between time periods: 9am to 10am.

Trade marks

Avoid using trademarked names – use tablet not iPad.

VAT

Should always be capitalised.

Wi-Fi

This is a brand name so it should be uppercase and hyphenated.