A PLAIN-SPEAKING councillor has asked people to help him beat jargon.
Clr Donald Firth wants anyone who spots silly terms in Kirklees Council documents to get in touch.
The Kirklees Cabinet member for corporate and business services said: "We are committed to plain, straightforward English. However, our staff are only human and some terms which are in common use between professionals sometimes find their way into council documents or statements.
"We would welcome it if people let us know when they don’t understand what we say."
Clr Firth’s comments came yesterday as a council in London banned its workers from using jargon.
Harrow Council has decreed that civil enforcement officers should now be known as traffic wardens, school crossing patrols are back to being lollipop ladies and civic amenity sites are just plain, old dumps.
Terms like "stakeholder engagements" and "multi- agency approach" have also been banned.
The Plain English Campaign welcomed the move.
Spokeswoman Marie Clair said: "While councils like Harrow and others declare they use plain English, we still see these failings demonstrated in local government job descriptions, where the wording requires an expert to interpret them.
"This is a recent example: ‘Traditional spatial analysis is embedded with our analysts and we wish to extend into quantitative techniques such as spatial statistics and spatial modelling’."
Ms Clair added that poor English is becoming more common.
She said: "Children still cannot spell their names after a year in school.
"University professors do not consider good spelling to be of high priority.
"Examining bodies mark papers inconsistently."
"Judges refuse to hear court cases due to the awful language used in reports by court officials. The language anarchy is increasing at an alarming rate.
"The rot is already set into a generation that should be showing our children better examples for their future.
"Academics and leaders of government and finance, commerce and industry are failing to raise the bar and would rather lower standards and encourage apathy and the gobbledegook that hides their own failings."
Next page has some bewildering jargon.
The Plain English Campaign has discovered the following job titles in councils around the country. Here’s the translation:
Education Centre Nourishment Production Assistant: Dinner lady
Waste Removal Engineer: Bin man
Knowledge Navigator: Teacher
Wastewater Treatment Officer: Sewage worker
Crockery Cleansing Operative: Washer-up
Coin Facilitation Engineer: Toll collector
Vision Clearance Executive: Window cleaner
Environment Improvement Technician: Cleaner
Revenue Protection Officer: Ticket inspector
Technical Horticultural Maintenance Officer: Gardener
Dispatch Services Facilitator: Post room worker
