When reports are unclear or fail to answer key questions, the business of government suffers. Our ‘Report writing for local government’ workshop addresses such issues head on.
In one intensive day, our tutor sets out the simple rules you must follow to ensure your reports are fully fit for purpose.
Drafting local authority reports
He’ll show
you how to draft local authority reports that serve the needs of your most
important readers.
He’ll explain how crucial it is to understand the perspective of local councillors, and other interested parties who have to read your reports.
He’ll show you how to write, edit and structure each document to make it work effectively for each of your key audiences.
Tailored to your needs
An
important feature of this course is that it’s carefully tailored to your needs.
Before any training takes place, our tutor will talk to a small cross section of those attending. If possible, he’ll also speak to one of your council’s senior officers.
In this way, he’ll learn about your main priorities for report writing, from a local perspective. These findings will then dictate the focus of his workshop.
Get an expert appraisal of your work
At the same
time, our tutor will invite some of those attending to provide him with examples of their
work.
Send him one of your reports and, he’ll give you an expert assessment of what you’ve written. In a typical workshop, he can review up to five such reports.
His approach during these review sessions is to celebrate aspects of the report that are working well, while highlighting areas where further improvement is still possible.
Helpful comments
Our tutor
has been providing expert assessments of local government reports for many
years. To date, his tailored writing workshops have been attended by people from no fewer than 21 local authorities.
Most people who attend his workshops say how helpful they find his feedback. One reason for this is that they get to see how the rules of good report writing can be applied directly to their own council's reports.
What you gain
This workshop
is packed with practical advice to make life easier for report writers and help
raise the quality of their writing.
In particular, our tutor has some powerful tips that will help you if:
To make your reports clear and readable, he’ll also show you how to simplify needlessly complex language and remove unnecessary jargon. Among other things, this will ensure your writing is more accessible to local residents.
Other advantages of the training
In
addition, he’ll introduce you to some easy-to-follow techniques used by
professional copywriters to tighten up their writing and editing. Apply these
to your reports and you will achieve an even more effective end result.
Although the focus here is very much on reports, this workshop includes a host of tips that will help you with other writing tasks. Having attended this session, you should find it easier to write:
Style guide and report template
If your council
uses a style guide and report template, our tutor can include a refresher
session on these.
He will explain the importance of both tools and demonstrate how they can make the task of report writing easier.
Alternatively, if it helps, our tutor can offer his own style guide and report template, for your council to use, as necessary.
In conclusion
To sum up, our
‘Report writing for local government’ workshop aims to encourage report writers
to take a fresh look at their whole approach.
And by putting everyone through the same process, it becomes much easier to achieve consistency in report writing, across your council.
Experience suggests that when every report writer follows a standard style and format, important benefits are gained.
In particular, readers of your reports can perform tasks - such as identifying critical information and weighing up recommendations - more quickly and easily.
Who should attend
‘Report writing for local government’ can be run for groups of 4 to 12 people. It’s suitable for anyone who is responsible for writing or editing council reports.
We particularly recommend this workshop if:
Our prices
We can run this workshop either at our training centre in South
London or at your offices, anywhere in the UK. Alternatively, the training can be delivered virtually, via Zoom.
Our rates, excluding VAT, are:
| Number of people | Total cost | Cost per person |
| 4 to 8 | £760 | £95 to £190 |
| 9 | £792 | £88 |
| 10 | £810 | £81 |
| 11 | £825 | £75 |
| 12 | £840 | £70 |
Other local authority training options
At Strawberry Training we offer a wide range of writing courses, that are ideal for those who work in local government.
If you are seeking a more general writing course, please take a look at: Writing for local government.
Writing for children and young people
Many local authorities have a section on their website devoted to children and young people, or have created a separate site specifically for that audience.
If you currently provide such a service, you might be interested in: Writing web content for young people.
This course has already been run successfully at six local authorities.
Web writing for a general audience
Alternatively, if you feel your team could benefit from expert advice on how to write for a general web audience, please visit: Website copywriting.
Other writing courses for local government
You or your colleagues, may also be interested in one or more of these tailored courses:
Where we train
As a bespoke training provider based in the London Borough of Sutton we can run
these courses:
If you're looking to develop and improve your skills in report writing for local government, call us today and we’ll talk you through your options.
Contact details
For more information on our tailored 'Local authority report writing' workshop or to
make a booking, please give us a call on: 020 8669 8730.
Or email: bruce@strawberrytraining.co.uk