Wed 01 Oct 2025
By Paul Richards
One of the great strengths of our constitution is that the civil service stays put as ministers, and governments, revolve. Unlike the USA, say, where the administration is largely appointed according to Presidential whims and fancy, our permanent civil service stands like a rock on which ministers rest.
As I always point out on Dods training courses, that means that a US President is elected in November, but not inaugurated until the following January. By contrast, the UK Prime Minister strolls into Downing Street within hours of the results being declared, to be welcomed by the Cabinet Secretary armed with briefing folders, a call list of world leaders, and the nuclear codes.
The revolving door of ministers, whether at the behest of the voters or a shuffling Prime Minister, presents great opportunities for the civil service. Ministers suspect it means that departments ‘bring out their dead’ and try to bounce new, green, ministers into decisions that their predecessors avoided. A new minister is certainly presented with a huge weight of briefing material and submissions for immediate decision. As one messaged me the other day ‘I am so knackered!’
A tired, bewildered new minister is no use to anyone. So the style, format, and language of briefing materials must match the task. Firstly, briefing materials must assume intelligence but not necessarily knowledge. Today’s minister is highly intelligent, probably university-educated, and now after 14 months since the election, has a degree of experience. Yet the complexities of new policy will be hard for them. So avoid jargon, acronyms, initialisations, waffle, padding, tautologies, and anything else that creates a barrier, not a bridge, to clarity.
In August 1940 (when as historians will point out, he had a lot on his mind) Winston Churchill issued his memo to civil servants calling for brevity and clarity in their briefings. ‘Nearly all of them are far too long.’ The great man railed against ‘padding’ and ‘officialese jargon’ but stated that short, crisp, memos not only save time, but also ‘prove an aid to clearer thinking’. In short, officials should do the heavy lifting of choosing the right arguments, words, and examples so that Ministers don’t have to guess what was meant.
That also means getting to the point straight away. Start with the conclusion. Ministers like to be told up front what is being proposed, or what they are being asked to do. They don’t appreciate being held in suspense until the final paragraphs. This is not a detective novel. It may seem brusque, or even impertinent, but ministers will thank you for your clarity. They like to know what they’re dealing with, and can decide accordingly.
English is a wonderful language, drawing on Latin, Greek, Norman French, Anglo-Saxon and Germanic languages, and endless words flowing in from exploration, colonialisation and immigration. However, for ministers, assume the shorter, sharper word or phrase is better than the longer, flowery Latinate word. Stop, don’t terminate. Help, don’t facilitate. Back to Churchill: ‘Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all".
When it comes to brevity, you should adopt Truman Capote’s advice to ‘write with the scalpel not the pen’. There are plenty of words you simply don’t need in your briefings. Totally annihilate. Completely surround. Close scrutiny. Near proximity. Every word must earn its place; there’s no room for gate crashers. And if you stumble upon a furthermore, henceforth, moreover, or nevertheless, then reach for the surgical device.
An effective minister will state how they like their briefings and provide clarity to officials. Some like rich details, others not. Some consume data and spreadsheets like popcorn, others prefer graphs, pie charts, and pictures. Some private offices detach the appendices before they even reach the Red Box, others stack it to the gunnels. As rail minister, for example, Grant Shapps insisted on submissions not longer than two pages, and no appendix should ever darken his doorstep. An email to officials stipulated that ‘submissions should be no longer than two pages with no exceptions and no annexes.’
Some ministers, though, impose rules and strictures on their officials which are hard to shallow. Without naming names, there are recent ministers who insist on such follies as a double space after a full-stop, or strict avoidance of a split infinitive. These are the ‘rules’ they learnt at school or university, but have often been superseded by technology or the evolution of grammar. Some, such as Michael Gove, issue their self-penned style guides for departments to adopt. Here, officials may have to bend to these ministerial whims for the sake of getting things done.
Writing well is the product not only of a skilled pen but also an ordered mind. Your role is to get thoughts from your mind, into the mind of the minister, with as few obstacles as possible. It is not merely a question of good grammar, but also good government.
Paul Richards is a Dods Training associate and trainer. His latest book is ‘How to Write a Parliamentary Speech’.
If you'd like to find out more about our writing & briefing courses, get in touch today: customer.service@dods-training.com.
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