It came as no surprise in a leaked letter to suppliers that the Central Office of Information (COI), the UK government’s department for marketing and communications, is cutting its spend on marketing by “at least 50%”, slicing in half the £540M spent last year.

In an article by Brand Republic, the COI confirms the cuts that will take place during this financial year.

Helpfully the COI has outlined criteria for those marketing initiatives that are likely to survive the chop. In his letter dated June 2^nd, Peter Buchanan, CEO of the COI, suggests that marketing initiatives likely to remain are those where:

• “The government has a duty to provide people with information e.g. changes to legislation or public services”
• “Providing the public with information is critical to the effective running of the country e.g. information about paying taxes, recruitment of armed forces”
• “There is unequivocal evidence that campaigns deliver measurable benefits relating directly to immediate public health and safety”

Siegel+Gale’s work in simplification has, of course, always been focused on these criteria.

The provision of essential information needs to be clear, needs to elicit a ‘right the first time’ response, and should be understood by the public at large. Plain English coupled with clear, well-designed documents are central to the provision of this information being effective. This is where the effectiveness of clear communication really counts. You can remind me as much as you like to pay my taxes, but if the self-assessment form is difficult to complete, then the overall business objective—the prompt, accurate payment of taxes—will not be met.

Effectiveness goes beyond just getting the message across; it is about eliciting a response—a response that has a business benefit. Central to all our simplification work is a significant amount of ROI modeling. The UK government has to look at the total cost of the service it provides and be relentless in learning how to reduce the costs associated with inaccuracies, delays or failures to comply that can often result from poorly designed communications.

To site an example, if you called HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) the week before the self assessment deadline because the form was unclear, you were among thousands. Each call had a cost. Each call reduced today is a saving. When there are 29 million tax payers in the UK the scope for saving is significant.

And evidence is critical. We have developed state of the art research tools that produce quantifiable, reliable data to show the impact that an information design change in a document, form, or statement can produce. This is essential to establish before implementing change. We talked to one government source recently who said it cost over £100,000 to make even the most minor change to any printed document. Without supporting data, it will be hard to convince a civil servant—more so in these times—that change is necessary, no matter how apparently obvious the benefit.

The UK government needs to save money, and simplifying its communications with the public will be key to initiating this process.

Fred Burt is the managing director for the Siegel+Gale London office.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 7th, 2010 at 5:00 am and is filed under blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.