Why use Easy English?
For government departments and agencies
As a government department, you have a responsibility to ensure everyone can access your written information.
Read more at Who needs Easy English? Think about people with Also think about people who are: Engage with people visiting Australia:
There is significant legislation at an international, federal, and state level of government which drives the implementation of Easy English.
Read more at Legislative and Policy Framework.
Who needs to understand your documents?
What documents are available to all staff?
Remember all staff have different reading skills. Sometimes this can be related to the type of job they are employed for, but not always.
Many times, office based staff may have good reading skills.
But
- do they have the time to read and understand complex documents?
- do they have the writing skills to develop correct complex documents using complex language and complex sentence structure?
Who said complex documents are the only documents that are acceptable?
What documents do you expect all staff to be able to read, understand and use functionally?
Here is the start of a list.
- Quality Assurance
- Instruction sheets – How to guides
- Safety instructions
- Policy and Procedures
- Appointment letters & contracts
- Annual Leave, Sick Leave and Holiday Leave Entitlements
- Salary Packaging
- Intranet and Internet
- Rights and Responsibilities
- Emails from senior managers and others
- Daily reports
- Incident reports.
What else can you add to this list?
Audit your internal documentation. What documents available to all staff need to be in Easy English?
Examples of our work are coming soon....
All government and non government departments produce information for the public.
We have the right to access information in the way we need now, to read, understand and use this information functionally. UNCPR 2006
What information does your department currently write for the public?
- Fact sheets or information sheets
- Appointment letters
- Flyers & Brochures
- Invoices
- Training materials
- Minutes and Agendas
- Posters
- Website – for desk tops or ipads or mobiles
- Rights and Responsibilities
- Consumer reports
- Text message reminders
- Surveys & customer feedback
- Committee reports
- Response to proposed policy or law changes
Can you add to this list?
All government departments have to be able to communicate effectively with the public.
Audit your public documents.
All documents need to be accessible to the 44% of the Australian population with non-functional literacy. ABS 2013 #4228
Examples of our work are coming soon....
