Contents
1. Introduction
2. The law
3. Customer care
4. Plain English
5. Corporate style
6. Partnership branding
7. Accessibility
8. Signage
9. Vehicle livery
10. Corporate clothing
1. Introduction
The way the Council presents itself has a role in how it is viewed: user-friendly and professional; or disorganised, amateurish and difficult to understand.
These guidelines are intended to set clear and consistent standards across the Council. The standards are not negotiable. Managers must ensure that employees are made aware of, and follow, these guidelines, especially the sections most relevant to their work.
2. The law
The Council has a duty to inform and communicate effectively with people.
When considering all forms of communication with our audiences, the Council will conform to the Government’s Code of Recommended Practice on Local Authority Publicity (made under the Local Government Act 2000, revised in 2011).This code covers the rules around content and style of publicity, dissemination, advertising, promotion of individual councillors and restrictions during the election period.
Local authorities face more legal restrictions than private bodies when it comes to external publicity. Most importantly councils cannot publish material which appears to be designed to affect public support for a political party. Publicity describing the Council’s policies, aims and activities should be as objective as possible, concentrating on facts or explanation or both. Any comment should be objective, balanced, informative and accurate.
The Government has also issued statutory guidance under the Local Government Act 2000 which the council should follow. The guidance emphasises that the role of publicity is informative and should be well balanced and objective. It notes that local authorities should not ‘mount publicity campaigns whose primary purpose is to persuade the public to hold a particular view on a question of policy.’
The Council should take care not to promote any of the following:
· Adult services, sexually orientated products or services
· Alcoholic drinks
· Gambling
· Loans and speculative financial products
· Tobacco and related products
· Weapons, violence or anti-social behaviour of any description.
In addition, council officers should ensure publicity the Council produces or endorses does not:
· Conflict with the values or policies of the Council in any way
· Appear to compete directly with a Council service/income stream and/or the local economy of the area
· Associate us with organisations in financial or legal conflict with the Council
· Discriminate on the grounds of ‘protected characteristics’. The Council’s new Equality Scheme is to be taken to Executive shortly. The scheme is influenced by the Equality Act 2010 and includes what are now called ‘protected characteristics’; these are age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion and belief, rurality, sex and sexual orientation.
All council advertising and promotion must comply with the rules and guidelines laid down by theAdvertising Standards Authority and theBritish Codes of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing.
For more information about the Council’s legal obligations regarding accessibility, see section 7.
3. Customer care
Improving customer access is important for the Council: to deliver high-quality services that are accessible and meet customers’ needs.
The Council has established standards for the way in which its employees deal with customers. The aim is to guarantee a ‘right first time’ experience for everyone who contacts the Council. The Customer Service Charter, which is available on the Council’s intranet, ensures high levels of customer service and a fast, efficient and helpful response.
To help all employees to get it right first time a set of guidelines that is available in the Corporate Customer Service Employees Handbook, available on the intranet. Templates for letters, email signatures, faxes and presentations are also available on the intranet.
4. Plain English
Plain English means that a reader can understand what you want to say in one reading. It only uses as many words as are necessary. Plain English pitches the language at a level of sophistication that suits the readers. It also takes into account layout that helps readers to navigate through the document.
Using clear and informative language isgood customer service. Using confusing and long-winded language may deter the reader from using a service or claiming a benefit that they are entitled to.
The following ‘rules’ should help to keep writing user-friendly:
Keep words and sentences short
Most people are put off by line after line of long words, long sentences or both.
· Never use a long word if a short one will do eg use about not approximately, after not following, take part not participate, set up not establish
· If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out eg it’s easy not it’s really easy, now not at this moment in time, soon not in the near future
· Over the whole document, make average sentence length 15 to 25 words. Break up sentences using full stops. Short sentences make clearer reading and reduce misunderstanding.
Use words readers are likely to understand
· Avoid jargon. Most people outside of the Council will not understand it. For example, we might talk about members, but the public thinks of them as councillors.
· Do not use abbreviations. Abbreviations are shortened forms of a word or phrase. Use January not Jan, Chartered Institute of Marketing not CIM, number not no
Consider different ways of setting out your information
The reader may find it easier to understand the information if it is presented as a list, table, chart, diagram or photograph.
Use accurate punctuation
Good use of punctuation helps you to be understood at first reading.
· Full stop: shows where a sentence ends. Do not use full stops after headings. Do not use full stops after abbreviations, unless it is at the end of a sentence.
· Comma: act as separators between parts of a sentence eg Although suitable protective equipment was available, most of the employees were not wearing it. Do not use a comma where there should be a full stop.
· Apostrophe: Shows the possessive, such as the Council’s vans (the van belongs to the Council), to show a letter has been missed out, like don’t, and for plurals ending in ‘s’, such as in six months’ time. Do not use an apostrophe for plurals of groups of letters and numbers eg PCs not PC’s, 1990s not 1990’s.
· Speech marks: Direct speech needs quotation marks (not apostrophes). Use a colon before the opening quotation mark and a full stop before the closing quotation mark, and then start a new sentence eg Councillor Jones said: “It’s good that young people are taking an interest in local democracy.”
· Hyphens and dashes: A hyphen (-) is half the length of a dash (─). A hyphen is used within a word; a dictionary will let you know if a word needs a hyphen or not. A dash can be used to show a pause in a sentence and should be used sparingly.
5. Corporate style
The way documents are presented has a role in how the Council is viewed: user-friendly and professional or disorganised, amateurish and difficult to understand. The following ‘rules’ should be used:
Typeface
· Use a minimum of Arial 12 point for ordinary text (known as body text)
· For large print publications, use 16 point type
· Use bold to highlight words
· Italics should only be used for referring to titles of books (The Da Vinci Code), newspapers and magazines (The Guardian) and TV programmes or films (Shrek)
· Never distort text by giving it shadows, never use block capitals and avoid underlining as these all make the text harder to read.
Layout
Use a left hand margin not a fully justified margin. The uneven spacing of a fully justified paragraph makes it difficult to read.
Colour
Use black text on a white background. If you must have a coloured background, make sure there is a good colour contrast between the text and the background. Some people, such as those with colour blindness, may have difficulties seeing the difference between the colours.
The corporate ‘colour’ is:
Pantone: 287 blue
RGB: Red = 0, green = 82, blue = 155
CMYK: Cyan = 100%, magenta = 69%, yellow = 0%, black = 11%
Spacing
Use one space after full stops and commas. Leave one line space between paragraphs.
Logo
The Council is one council with one identity. The Council’s logo (below) must be used on the front of all publications, signage, etc. There are no separate logos for directorates or services.
· The logo must not be distorted or stretched or altered in any way.
· The logo must not be recreated in any other colours (except black and white for use in black and white documents. There is a black and white version available).
· The logo should not be placed over brightly coloured or patterned backgrounds nor have text or images too close to it.
· The minimum size of logo which should ever be used is 15mm. It can however be reproduced to much larger sizes. As a guide the minimum logo size which should be used on different sized documents is:
A3 40mm Compliments slips 35mm
A4 30mm Business cards 30mm
A5 20mm ID badges etc 15mm
· The accepted areas of clearance around the logo are shown below for normal A4 use, however, with different types of publications you may need to adopt a percentage of the logo size as the protection zone. This should be a minimum of 20% of the height and width of the logo size you are using.
Capitals
Too many capitals can be difficult to read. Use capital letters:
· to start sentences and quotes
· for days (Monday), months (May), religious holidays (Easter). Do not use for seasons (spring)
· for proper nouns, that is the names of people, companies and events (John, Workington, Allerdale Borough Council, Community Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Policy and Communications team, First World War)
· for specific titles (the Chief Executive, the Government), but not if the title does not directly relate to a particular person or organisation (This country has a democratic government, is there a planning officer here?). Use Councillor if you are talking about a specific person (I spoke to Councillor Alan Smith) but councillor if it is about the role (Are you interested in becoming a councillor?).
Never use block capitals; they are difficult to read. If in doubt use lower case unless it looks absurd.
Numbers
· Never start a sentence with a figure; always spell it out
· Numbers one to nine should be in words. Numbers 10 to 999,999 should be written as figures. For example: “One in ten people agreed.”
· Large figures should be in words (one million not 1,000,000), unless in a table, when it uses decimal points or percentages or when it is large amounts of money (4.56%, £1.2 million)
· Numbers above 999 need a comma (1,256)
· Dates should be written 2 April 2007. Don’t put ‘the’ before it and cut out th/nd/rd/st next to the numbers
· Times are written without a space between the figure and am or pm. For example: 8.30am or 4pm
· Telephone numbers do not need brackets for the area code. Put 01900 702702 not (1900) 702702.
Bullet points
Use a dot symbol (●) or numbers for bullet points. Avoid using roman numerals (i, iv, xii).
The bullet points form a list following a colon (:), not a colon and a dash, and each bullet point should have either: a semi-colon at the end of each line with a full stop at the end of the last bullet point; or a full stop at the end of the last bullet point. The important point is that whichever way you choose, you apply it consistently.
If the bullet points are long and form separate sentences, each one should start with a capital letter and end with a full stop.
Images
· Use good-quality photographs and illustrations to break up text.
· Do not use cartoon-like clip art. It looks unprofessional.
· Make sure the resolution is appropriate. For photographs to appear in corporate publications, the photograph should always be a high resolution (300 dots per inch). Photographs for use solely on the web can be a lower resolution, normally 72 dots per inch at the size they are going to be viewed.
· Never distort an image by stretching it. This often just leads to strange looking images or one that is ‘pixelated’ and blurry.
· Check the copyright. It is against the law to use images that are copyrighted to someone else. It is often wrongly assumed that images on websites are freely-available to be used ─ almost everything on the internet will still be within copyright. If you want to use a picture that is not owned by the Council, please get permission in writing to use it.
· The courts have determined that photographs and images of people are capable of being personal data and as such come under the Data Protection Act. The Council is required to have permission from individuals if we are to publish their personal information, including their image. The Council therefore needs a signed consent form to print photographs of people. This applies to adults as well as children. A standard consent form is available on the intranet. Ensure that everyone who is photographed completes a form before the Council publishes the photograph.
And finally…
· Use spellchecker and grammar checker and a dictionary.
· Use the templates for letters, faxes and presentations, available on the intranet.
· Don’t use ampersands (&) unless it is in the name of a company.
· The Council’s name is ‘Allerdale Borough Council’. Never abbreviate our name to ABC or Allerdale BC. It could cause confusion. After the first reference to Allerdale Borough Council, you can use ‘the Council’.
· Customers can be confused if we use ‘Allerdale’ or ‘the borough’ when we actually mean the Council. Therefore, use Allerdale Borough Council to refer to the Council and use Allerdale to refer to the place, the borough of Allerdale.