Plea for plain English after council report ‘that no one understands’

AFTER being asked to discuss a report to “encompass stakeholder views on a partnerships strategy integrating inclusive building blocks to commission devolved resource-aligned skills under a wider skills landscape”, a Cornwall councillor has begged officers to write in plain English.

This particularly wordy sentence was one of many featured in an ‘Adult Education Strategic Skills Plan,’ brought to a special meeting of Cornwall Council’s economic growth and development overview and scrutiny committee.

Officers were asking councillors to approve plans for adult education in Cornwall now that its £10.2 million budget has been devolved from central government as part of last year’s Level 2 Devolution Deal.

However, Councillor Tim Dwelly complained: “These reports are written in a language that, I think we all know no one understands.”

“I know when it really hits home out there stuff like this has to be translated into something you chuck on Facebook with three bullet points. Can I make a plea that we learn to do plain English – even if it’s in a separate document?

“What’s the message to people out there? I can’t turn all those words into anything with local people I represent – for example, who live on Treneere estate [in Penzance, one of the most deprived areas in the UK] – where all this stuff really matters.

“I can’t do it. What people really want to know is where can they go and all the really basic stuff.

“I’ve been trying to say this for years; can we try to include plain English and straightforward messages? I know it’s hard to bring things down to a few bullet points sometimes, but you have to, otherwise people don’t get it.

“I worry that in this council, and I’m sure many others, the language

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The language is almost saying ‘look at all these words, it sounds terribly, terribly clever’

is almost saying, ‘Look at all these words; it sounds terribly, terribly clever’ but it doesn’t, because it doesn’t actually translate.

“It’s the same when I was on the cabinet; we had ‘creative strategies,’ and I didn’t understand a word of it. We’ve got to have a basic message to get out there.”

The committee did agree to the £10.2m strategy for 2024-25, which will also see some £800,000 per year assigned to the Free Courses for Jobs initiative.

The final budget allocation will be announced each year in February or

March.

The budget is designed to provide skills and additional education for people aged 19 and above in Cornwall to help them move into a job or an apprenticeship, or move on to further learning.

Cllr Barbara Ellenbroek, the council’s portfolio-holder for children and families, said Cornwall taking back the budget from Whitehall represented “a fantastic opportunity for us in Cornwall, because it means we can take control over what’s delivered, rather than having budget decisions made out of Cornwall.

“I think sometimes people look at adult education and think it’s simply learning to knit or how to paint flowers. Those are very important parts of what we do, but adult ed is absolutely crucial for upskilling people.”

The meeting heard that the majority of adult education in the county was provided by Cornwall College, Truro and Penwith College and Cornwall Council’s own adult education service.

Cllr Tim Dwelly