Writing Reports for City Council

City staff provide objective, professional advice to Council, and implement Council’s decisions (in accordance with policies and bylaws, and statutory powers, such as the Community Charter).

If, for any reason, trust and relationships are eroded, the City’s political decision making process will bog down, Council deliberations will often get side tracked, and decisions deferred (or sent back to staff for more information that may not even be needed to make the decision).

The best way for staff to support effective decision making, by Council, is to write Reports that foster Council’s trust and confidence in staff. When writing any Report for Decision, ask yourself: “Have I presented all the reasonable options/choices for Council’s consideration? Are the options presented objectively? For each option, have I explained the advantages/benefits and the disadvantages/costs. Is the recommendation substantiated? Would I be confident using this Report to make a decision if I were a Council member?”

Providing anything less may lead Council members to suspect they are being manipulated or managed by staff; or being pushed into staff’s desired outcome, without being given all the objective, reasoned advice an elected official is entitled to when asked to make a decision.

Roles & Conduct of Federal Ministers

In November 2015, the Prime Minister of Canada released OPEN AND ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT outlining the roles and responsibilities of Ministers and the standard of conduct expected of Ministers. It also provides guidance to ministerial exempt staff and useful information for public servants.  The entire document, is available on the PM’s website.

French Writing Resources

We were asked in a Writing Excellent Briefing Notes webinar for resources in French. Here are some suggestions:

PWGSC maintains the Language Portal of Canada, which provides access to Canadian resources for communicating effectively in both official languages. There is a section called decouvrir-discover that contains links to a variety of free resources (federal, provincial, academic etc). Click and go to the French Site, or the English Site.

The free Public Service Commission of Canada Style Guide is online: Click here for the French Version or the English Version.

The Canadian School of Public Service offers a variety of writing courses in both official languages and varying price ranges. Click on the link for one in French called Rédaction de notes d’information ciblées, or the English version Writing Targeted Briefing Notes.

Orwell’s Rules on Writing

George Orwell’s Rules, from “Politics and the English Language“, (1946), are timeless.

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Follow these rules and you may well be reversing the decline of the English language . As Orwell explained:

“It is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.”

University of Victoria’s Writers’ Guides

The University of Victoria provides two online writer’s guides that may be useful. Check out the Business Writer’s Guide or the Report and Proposal Writing Guide.

A Hypertext Writer’s Guide, originally prepared for students in the English Department, is no longer available.