CASE STUDY

Campbelltown City Council:

Spreading the word

Five years ago, Campbelltown City Council realised it had a communication problem.

"The public had a lot of difficulty communicating with us and understanding our letters and other documents. That message came from the public themselves, the Councillors and our counter staff," says Malcolm Britton (right), Campbelltown's Director of Corporate Services. The region's growing migrant population -- embracing language backgrounds from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe -- made it even more important that the Council communicate clearly.

The Council set up a permanent Forms and Documents Committee to review all its printed communications. The nine-person team represents all council departments and levels of management. It also includes counter staff. "Those people are our direct link to the public, so their feedback is extremely important," stresses Malcolm.

There was minimal resistance to the plain English push. "Most people were aware of the negative feedback produced by many of our existing forms, and were anxious to do something about it," reports Malcolm. "But they probably didn't know how to start." The council engaged a plain English consultant to get the ball rolling.

Keeping communication on form

The council's most pressing communication problem was the volume and complexity of its forms. For example, it used to have a different form to hire each of the ten council halls. These were consolidated into one simple form. At the same time, the council put all its booking information on a computer database. "So if someone comes in to hire a hall and it's already been booked, we can look at the computer and quickly tell them what venues are available. Having the one form and one database has been a big advantage," comments Malcolm.

The property and building areas were also streamlined. In the old days, property developers and builders needed to fill in separate forms dealing with planning approval and subdivision, and to deal with up to three council departments. The council restructured, bringing all these functions together so that applicants need only deal with one area. Again, it also combined several forms into one.

Since it was set up, the committee has revised over 500 forms and other documents. Malcolm stresses that this is an ongoing process: "Whenever a form needs to be reprinted, representatives from the relevant departments on the committee review the form, focusing particularly on the layout, language and ease of use."

"After each form is redrafted, it goes through an extensive review process within our committee, then it goes to our plain English consultant for a second draft. Then it's tested with the public. New forms aren't just thrown on the counter -- we test them over a month to see what feedback we receive. If there are any problems, we go back to the committee and the consultant and they come up with a final draft. So we try to get feedback from the people who use the forms, as well as from our staff."

Tender documents were another area which needed improvement. The council asked some of the companies it regularly contracts to suggest ways of simplifying the documents. It then engaged its law firm and its plain English consultant to redraft them.

To ensure that the commitment to plain English flows through the entire organisation, the council introduced a comprehensive training program for its 900 staff. All new employees have a compulsory one-day plain English training session. Secretaries, report writers and authors take more advanced courses on letter and report writing, based on the council's own detailed style guide.

Translations without tears

	As (from left to right) Lindy Toaetolu, Raewyn Sinclair-Kidd and Carol Hartley work in community services, they can gauge how the council's information program is received by the public.

The plain English policy is just one aspect of the council's broader plan to improve public communication. "We will soon have a 24-hour dedicated phone information line on council services and facilities. We also have a community information booklet listing all the community groups and organisations throughout the area. And we're compiling a catalogue of the council reports and publications which are available free of charge to residents -- that's all part of our ongoing customer service."

To communicate clearly with its non-English speaking customers, the council uses the services of a migrant resource centre, and also translates material into community languages. Not surprisingly, it has found that plain English documents translate better into other languages. "When we started trying to translate documents it took up to three months to get them done -- it was certainly a long-winded exercise," says Malcolm. "Now we get translations back in a few weeks rather than a few months."

Saving time and money

Since it introduced its plain English policy, Campbelltown City Council has saved on both printing bills and staff time. Malcolm estimates those savings as at least $100,000 over the course of the project.

"While our main focus has been making it easier for our customers to do business with us, there have been several other major benefits," reports Malcolm. He lists these as:

• reducing the overall number of documents and forms
• better standards of presentation
• forms are completed more easily and with fewer errors and queries
• an improved level of compliance with council requirements.

"The culture of the organisation has certainly changed in the last six to seven years," he concludes. "I think people now realise how important it is to communicate clearly, simply and effectively with the public."

Plain English in practice Click on the image for "before" and "after" examples (39k GIF) of Campbelltown City Council's form letters. Or a 49k pdf file to see more detail.

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