The public sector involves the widest possible range of different types of workplace writing and the stakes are often the very highest – the welfare and wellbeing of local communities and vulnerable people.
Your department may regularly submit reports to Committee, to stakeholders or to the Court; you may have to prepare Annual Statements; your employees might be responsible for composing press releases about the authority’s policies and strategic plan; you personally may have been charged with overseeing the social media campaign for a completely new initiative.
Wherever you work, you will be conscious of the need for meticulous accuracy, strict confidentiality and the demands of public accountability.
Writing Project will design a bespoke workshop for you, focused on your specific requirements. It may be that your employees need help with minute-taking or case recording; supervisors or judges might have requested more concise reports; perhaps you’ve identified a lack of consistency across the organisation in the house style for emails? Whatever your needs, our tutors will deliver practical, relevant content that will boost workplace writing technique.
Clarity and accessibility are at the heart of public service. Invest in your writing skills and see the difference it makes in all your internal and public-facing communications.
Writing Project workshop content for the public sector includes:
- Press Releases
- Proofreading
- Report Writing
- Responding to Complaints
- Social Media
- Website Content
- Women and the Language of Power
- Writing for Different Audiences
- Writing for Low Reading Ages
- Business / Corporate Language
- Case Recording
- Clarity, Concision and Effectiveness
- Court Reports
- Editing
- Emails
- Engaging an Audience
- Establishing a House Style
- Minutes
- Powerful Paragraphs
Visit our In-House Workshops page for more detail on workshop content.
More information on In-House Workshops.
If there is anything that is specific to your organisation, we can help you with that too. And if it’s difficult for your team to all be absent at the same time for three hours, why not send them individually to one of our Open Workshops?
More information on Open Workshops
Or maybe a Writing Audit would be the solution? Writing Audits highlight what’s working well in your written material, what’s working less well, and why. And then they tell you how to improve it.
More information on Writing Audits
Case Study: Leicester City Council
Writing Project delivered writing support to the council’s fostering teams (Recruitment and Assessment; Kinship Assessment; Support and Supervision). This took the form of an initial workshop to identify the core principles of effective writing, one-to-one sessions for all participants to receive feedback on their writing and explore areas for development, and a follow-up workshop to address common writing challenges as highlighted through the one-to-ones.
Team managers commented “[The work] has been enthusiastically received not least because this is an area of development that can be overlooked. Staff appreciated the opportunity to take a critical view of how they approach the writing process and their individual styles… As a result, we as their managers, as well as the people who receive their reports and assessments, have seen a marked improvement in the quality of work being presented. This is across all areas, from the weighty assessment pieces where workers have to organise a large volume of information from a variety of sources into a coherent narrative of an individual’s life story and experience, to the day to day recordings staff undertake regarding their communication with others.”
Similar writing support was subsequently offered to the LCC Adoption Team, Targeted Youth Support and other teams across Children’s Social Care (including children in need, looked after children, youth offending, children and family centres, safeguarding). These workshops involved over 150 staff.
I’m tired of cut and paste, tired of churning out the same old sentences. Your approach was fun and practical, prompting much fresh thinking, and will help us promote ourselves and communicate with students, partner organisations and funders in more effective ways. — Youth Education Service
I can only say how helpful and informative I found the course and facilitators. — NHS Birmingham South Central CCG