From MissMarketCrash, apparently these words have been banned by British local government authorities:
across-the-piece, actioned, advocate, agencies, ambassador, area based,
area focused, autonomous, baseline, beacon, benchmarking, best
practice, blue sky thinking, bottom-up, CAAs, can do culture,
capabilities, capacity, capacity building, cascading, cautiously
welcome, challenge, champion, citizen empowerment, client, cohesive
communities, cohesiveness, collaboration, commissioning, community
engagement, compact, conditionality, consensual, contestability,
contextual, core developments, core message, core principles, core
value, coterminosity, coterminous, cross-cutting, cross-fertilization,
customer, democratic legitimacy, democratic mandate, dialogue,
direction of travel, distorts spending priorities, double devolution,
downstream, early win, edge-fit, embedded, empowerment, enabler,
engagement, engaging users, enhance, evidence base, exemplar, external
challenge, facilitate, fast-track, flex, flexibilities and freedoms,
framework, fulcrum, functionality, funding streams, gateway review,
going forward, good practice, governance, holistic, holistic
governance, horizon scanning, improvement levers, incentivising, income
streams, indicators, initiative, innovative capacity, inspectorates,
interdepartmental, interface, iteration, joined up, joint working,
LAAs, Level playing field, lever, leverage, localities, lowlights,
MAAs, mainstreaming, management capacity, meaningful consultation,
meaningful dialogue, mechanisms, menu of options, multi-agency,
multidisciplinary, municipalities, network model, normalising,
outcomes, output, outsourced, overarching, paradigm, parameter,
participatory, partnership working, partnerships, pathfinder, peer
challenge, performance network, place shaping, pooled budgets, pooled
resources, pooled risk, populace, potentialities, practitioners,
predictors of beaconicity, preventative services, prioritization,
priority, proactive, process driven, procure, procurement, promulgate,
proportionality, protocol, provider vehicles, quantum, quick hit, quick
win, rationalisation, rebaselining, reconfigured, resource allocation,
revenue streams, risk based, robust, scaled-back, scoping, sector wise,
seedbed, self-aggrandizement, service users, shared priority, shell
developments, signpost, single conversations, single point of contact,
situational, slippage, social contracts, social exclusion, spacial,
stakeholder, step change, strategic, strategic priorities, streamlined,
sub-regional, subsidiarity, sustainable, sustainable communities,
symposium, systematics, taxonomy, tested for soundness, thematic,
thinking outside of the box, third sector, toolkit, top-down,
trajectory, tranche, transactional, transformational, transparency,
upstream, upward trend, utilise, value-added, visionary, welcome,
wellbeing, worklessness.
Whenever I step off the plane in the U.K. or Netherlands a tear (or more) comes to my eye as I contemplate those countries as birthplaces of individual liberty. But this: is it a move for or against liberty?
It's funny, but if you Google "predictors of beaconicity" you get lots and lots.
Much as I care for the LGA (Local Goverment Association) which has issued this list – they used to be a client of mine – they certainly don’t have the power to ban anything.
They are simply a membership organisation for local authorities – perhaps like the National Governors Association, which I am pretty sure has no regulatory authority over the actions of governors.
The following link has a bit more about this story, which keeps popping up year after year in LGA press releases: http://www.thepickards.co.uk/index.php/200903/lga-expose-blue-sky-bastions-of-beaconicity-bollocks/
If you are trying to set policy, to administer policy or to explain policy, it is a good idea to avoid terms which have no reasonably agreed and/or clear meaning. After more than ten years of a central governemnt largely driven by publicity, all layers of government in Britain are weighed down with much language whose meaning, if any, is diffuse, is disputed and remains as elusive as any light of fools flickering over a darksome marsh.
This list of terms to avoid is very welcome; if incomplete. Thanks for giving the list a bit of extra publicity in the blogsphere.
Ah, Leigh Caldwell had already answered my question before it ever got posted here. Thanks…
The words have not been banned. The LGA is suggesting – tongue firmly in cheek – that they should be, because local authorities over-use them.
Get off your bloody high horse about ‘liberty’.
See here for the LGA link – they suggest these are words “that public bodies should not use”…hence the phrase “banned from use by Local Government Authorities”…
I posted the words with a sense of humour…
http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=1716341
Best,
Missmarketcrash
This is part of the government’s “clarity in writing” movement. The words obviously aren’t banned for use by the general public – it’s just a style guide for civil servants that’s taken the effort to single out some obviously vacuous semantic crutches that get overused by bureaucrats trying to sound clever.
Quote: “How do they plan on not using ‘value added’? Don’t they have a value added tax?”
Easy: As model civil servants, they want to enhance productivity. Hence, they will use VAT from now on…
I find it bizarre that they want to avoid terms like “customer”, “welcome” and “priority”. Aren’t those perfectly normal mainstream words? How can you possibly say “welcome” or “customer” more simply or cleary than by saying, well, “welcome” and “customer”?
Help I’m being oppressed.
Wow…I see that they are off to a really good start…but it seems they forgot the second half of the list:
Tax, spend, ban, legislate,appoint, “green-jobs”, crisis, change, pork, decency, sustainable, “the children”, top 1 percent, “the taxpayers”, jobs, fair, national interest, rights, security, mainstreet, greed, “we”, “our”, 21st century and opportunity.
…or maybe that’s just what the list should have been…because whenever you hear someone in government using one of those words, stupidity usually follows…or precedes…
For clarification, while it is reported as a ban, various people have made clear to me that the LGA don’t actually have any power in this regard. They are basically ADVISING Local Authorities not to use these terms.
And, if you refine your search a little and search only in government sites for the phrase predictors of beaconicity, you’ll find a lot less. And they, as I point out in the link Leigh included at the top of the comments, are only there in reference to the LGA’s list in the first place.
It’s fine to blame councils when they are doing something wrong, but in this case the LGA is implying that councils are using jargon they have never used in the first place…
I get the impression this is more Strunk and White-style editorial stuff, not “banning” in the sense of the FCC “fab five”.
As everyone seems so terribly excited by this post, perhaps you’d enjoy –
http://missmarketcrash.blogspot.com/2009/03/predictors-of-beaconicity.html
Doubleplusungood
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