02 01 Principles of good report writing and technical requirements Each Department has a Committee Continuity Officer CCO who

is the pivotal contact in the report preparation process. These officers and the CCO duties are set out in doc 01 06. Firstly, consider is your intended report really necessary? For instance, reports to Cabinet should only be prepared where: Officer delegated powers do not allow a decision to be taken the Scheme of Delegation For a special reason it is inappropriate for Cabinet Member or officer delegated powers to be used Officers have been asked by the Cabinet or a Cabinet Member to report and only then when: The relevant Cabinet Member has given agreement (see Section 1). As an alternative, Members can be updated on progress in other ways, e.g. by inclusion in Councillors E-news+ or publishing documents on the website. See advice from your Comms contact. Clear purpose - Before starting a report always be clear about its purpose and outcomes so that you can restrict the information in the report to what is relevant. Report format - So as to ensure your report is structured in the manner required by Members, always use the standard (single) report template (see report template doc 01 05). This is Arial 11 throughout. Each time you start a report, you must create a new document by saving the appropriate template as a word document and type directly into this. This is the only way to ensure the document will be bug-free, formatted correctly and in the required format. Do not overwrite an existing report, or try to manually reformat an existing word file to fit into the required style. The report should be stand alone - fully comprehensible to a reader without reading the appendices. Technical requirements - The Council publishes all public reports and minutes on the public website so the final cleared report as emailed to Governance & Democracy(Democratic Services) should consist of: The report in one word file - the report with any minor appendices (maximum 10 pages in total) (only include Appendices if strictly necessary). Further Word or pdf files(not excel spreadsheets) with any absolutely necessary larger appendices (which will be subject to a limited hard copy distribution (to save on print costs).

By meeting these requirements, you will assist the public and councillors who are reading reports on-line. LanguageThink about your target audience. Reports need to be understandable to a wide audience - Councillors, the public, the press, other stakeholders, professionals in the field, officers in your department and officers elsewhere in the Council. Do not assume your audience has the same level of background knowledge as you. Reports too frequently contain jargon which makes them more difficult to understand. Test your style on colleagues from a different service or professional background and ask them to identify what they consider to be jargon or specialist language it may differ from how you perceive what you have written. Look for simple equivalents for technical terms wherever possible or explain the meaning in full. Only use abbreviations where you first identify its meaning (e.g. Greater London Authority (GLA)).

Reflect on the cooperative council implementation guidance issued by Communications, including The Writer: 2. Language We have a new way of communicating with our citizens were now having Confident Conversations to help us create equal and collaborative relationships with each other and our residents. To find out more, see the e-learning module or read the guidelines. This means:

You may want to reflect on how you word your emails, reports or other written messages and see if you could apply the Confident Conversations principles.

Use short sentences, with no more than 20-25 words as an average length. Mix the length of sentences up - this improves the flow and makes it easier to read. Break the text up into short, coherent paragraphs and avoid long blocks of unbroken text as these make the report appear more daunting. Use numbered headings and sub-headings as clear signposts to the content of the report and organise them in a logical sequence. Reports should be "stand alone" (i.e. contain all relevant issues for Members' consideration) and with a short and clear Executive Summary (what is recommended, why and what effect it will have) as well as all other relevant considerations. Reports need to be short so that their content can be easily understood (no more than 10 pages usually, but fewer for non-complex reports).