NALA Won Bid To Host Prestigious PLAIN Conference

We are delighted to announce that we won our bid to host the Plain Language Association International (PLAIN) 2015 Conference in Dublin. Previous conference locations were Sydney, Sweden, the Netherlands and Vancouver (October 2013). We are very excited about the conference. We see it as an opportunity to raise greater awareness of the need for plain language. We will keep you updated on conference developments.

Plain English Open Training 25 November 2013

We are offering a one day open plain English training course in Dublin on 25 November. This course is for information or communications officers, managers, administrators and others whose work involves writing or putting documents together. The course introduces participants to the most common writing and layout errors and uses examples and exercises to show you how to fix them. The course is limited to 20 people, so please book early to secure a place. The course costs just €120 per person. This includes a light lunch. To find out more information or to book, please email Claire O'Riordan @ coriordan@nala.ie

NALA to present at important Department of Public Expenditure and Reform seminar

This conference is run by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. NALA has been invited to present on Using plain language to enhance service and delivery efficiency. The seminar will be attended by 60 plus public servants and is on Tuesday 17 September. At this seminar, we will launch a short online plain English guide for Quality Customer Service Officers.

Hats off to the Canadian Government

Plain Language Labelling Initiative We were delighted to see that Leona Aglukkaq, the Canadian Minister of Health, recently announced the launch of the Plain Language Labelling Initiative, which aims to improve the safe use of drugs by making drug labels and safety information easier to read and understand.

I am pleased to announce that our Government will be making plain language a requirement on drug packages in order to help prevent adverse drug reactions, medication errors and protect Canadian patients

NALA sees this as a positive step, one that we hope will be put in place in Ireland as well. Read more about the Labelling Initiative here and about health literacy development in Ireland here.

Minister Burton and Paul Kenny praise our Plain English Mark

The Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton TD, today (27 May 2013) officially launched the 2012 Annual Report of the Pensions Ombudsman and a new booklet developed by the Pensions Ombudsman on Dispute Resolutions. Both Minister Burton and Paul Kenny, Pensions Ombudsman, praised our Plain English Mark. Minister Burton, said that having the Mark made documents 'straightforward and easy to understand.' Paul Kenny commented on the value of using plain English and the Mark in making information easy for more people to understand. You can read the Pensions Ombudsman 2012 report.

Congratulations to the winners and finalists in the Crystal Clear Award Winners

The Crystal Clear Health Literacy Awards were held on Monday 13 May in the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. The National Poisons Information Centre at Beaumont Hospital was amongst the winners for their project, 'Say NO to poison!' Four other organisations were also recognised for their efforts to communicate health information more clearly. Commenting on the awards, Inez Bailey, Director of the National Adult Literacy Agency, said, 'The initiatives that have been recognised here today show what can be accomplished when clear communication is used in healthcare'. This is very important as recent findings show that almost 40% of the Irish public have difficulty with health literacy issues. This includes reading health information documents. A number of the entrants and finalists have achieved NALA's Plain English Mark. Congratulations to all! For more information, click here.

NALA's response to the Consultation on the Regulation of Small Print in Consumer Contracts paper

Earlier this year, we promised to upload our response to the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation's consultation paper on the regulation of small print in consumer contracts (February 2013). Here it is. Before you read it you will remember that the consultation paper outlines laws and rules on small print and other presentation matters in Ireland and elsewhere. NALA is mentioned on pages 9 and 14. It also sets out options for the future statutory regulation of small print and seeks views on these options.

Plain English is the best medicine

Healthy Ireland and clear communications

The launch of the Healthy Ireland Framework Strategy document recognises that health literacy (of which plain English is a central tenet), is a key strategy towards achieving good health. The Framework mentions health literacy under the theme of Empowering People and Communities (Actions 3.1 and 3.8, pages 24-25).

This is exciting as it is the first formal policy recognition on the value of health literacy. This recognition is timely in light of the findings of the European Health Literacy Survey which showed that almost 40% of the Irish public have health literacy problems and that 17% of people don’t understand health information leaflets as they are too complex.

The value of plain English in increasing access to clear communications was also lauded at the Royal College of Surgeons Conferences on Day Surgery in Ireland last Friday (12 April).

Producing clearer health information in plain English, will also achieve greater efficiencies in the health care sector.

Our Plain English Editing and Training Service edits health literacy materials, trains health practitioners in the use of plain English and offers competitively priced health literacy audits of health care settings. If you are interested in any of these, please contact Claire at coiordan@nala.ie.

NALA plain English input to Quality Service Customer Officers' meeting

On Tuesday 5 March, NALA presented to over 20 Quality Service Customer Officers in the Public Sector. The Officers are working on their Customer Charters and Customer Service Action Plans. They are keenly aware of the need to make their communications accessible for both the public and for their own staff.

Our input sought to support their work in this area and showcase examples of plain English usage in other organisations and countries. They were particularly interested in the trend towards legislating for plain English, plain English training, how to introduce plain English into an organisation or part of an organisation, and writing for the web.

Our presentation was well received and we will continue to offer plain English support to the public sector.

NALA welcomes Irish consultation on the regulation of small print in consumer contracts

NALA welcomes the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation’s consultation paper on the regulation of small print in consumer contracts (February 2013). This paper outlines laws and rules on small print and other presentation matters in Ireland and elsewhere. NALA is mentioned on pages 9 and 14. It also sets out options for the future statutory regulation of small print and seeks views on these options. NALA is preparing a response to this consultation. The deadline for submitting views is Monday 18 March.

First Plain Numbers Workshop a great success

On January 23 2013 NALA held its first plain numbers event in the National College of Ireland. The workshop was hosted by Daniel Sellers, Numeracy Consultant and Claire O’Riordan, NALA Plain English Coordinator. Participants were shown how to present numbers in a clear, understandable way and took part in exercises that showed how difficult it can be to identify the meaning of numbers. There was also a lively discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of using graphs to display numerical information.

Some helpful tips from the day included writing numbers from one to nine in letters and from 10 on in numbers, for example 12 or 250 and to spell numbers when they appear at the start of a sentence. Another useful tip for presenting numbers in spreadsheets is to align the numbers to the right, as this is the easiest way to read them.

Writing for Dollars, Writing to Please: The Case for Plain English in Business, Government and Law by legal professor Joseph Kimble

We would like to draw your attention to a recent publication on the proven benefits of plain English. Written by Professor Joseph Kimble, this book includes summaries of 50 cases where plain English has benefited organisations by saving them time and money. Fifteen of these cases involve legal documents so this book is a real 'must' for anyone looking to make their legal documents more accessible.
You can find out more information about the book here

2013 - The European Year of Citizens

2013 marks the European Year of Citizens. During the year European citizens are encouraged to discuss how they want to see Europe develop by the year 2020. To do this, it is important that citizens understand issues such as rights and policies. We believe the use of plain English is an important strategy to get citizens involved in this discussion. Plain English resources such as our Plain English Guide to Citizenship Terms will help people have a voice in this important debate. For more information about the European Year of Citizens, click here.

EU directive proposes that all Public Sector websites are accessible to everyone by 2015

The European Commission has proposed a directive that would lead to all European public sector websites following web-accessibility guidelines by 2015. Currently, less than 10% of European websites follow web-accessibility guidelines. 15% of the working EU population, or 80 million people, have ‘functional limitations or disabilities’ and this number is expected to rise as the population of Europe gets older.

Just one third of the 736,000 public sector websites in Europe follow web-accessibility guidelines, and there is little consistency across Europe in the type of guidelines that each government follows. Under the proposed directive, all member states would follow the same set of guidelines and visitors to websites would benefit from features such as screen readers for text, audio descriptions of images and written captions for audio files. The common guidelines would also make it easier and cheaper for web developers to design accessible websites in different countries.

You can read more about the directive here