“’Allo ’allo, I vill say zis only vance!” It was comical for UK viewers to listen to a television programme in which English was treated as a foreign language. But it’s no fun when your tax assessment is as understandable as a classic French novel by Jean Paul Sartre.

Jargon, ‘management-speak’, legalese, gobbledygook – these are all languages foreign to many people’s daily lives. Of course, there are many reference points, and extending vocabulary is never a bad thing – but understanding a council tax bill or benefit claim forms should not be a question of intellect or linguistic knowledge.

Language should be appropriate for the intended audience; people should be able to absorb, understand and deal with a document after a single reading. Messages should reach readers with the minimum of obstructions; it is not ‘dumbing-down’ to provide clarity to a wide audience.

So why is our public information still unclear? Following the triumphs of the 1983 Rayner Review – when Margaret Thatcher kicked off an initiative that led to the rewriting of 58,000 government forms and the distribution to civil servants of a guide to plain English – it seems that the words of today’s civil service have, once again, become lost in jungles of jargon. It used to be the archaic tone of legalese that was prominent; now it’s ‘Euro-speak’ phrases and management-speak.

In 1987, the Plain English Campaign’s first Inside Write awards recognised clear internal communications between civil servants. The 45 departments in existence at that time sent in 102 entries to the competition. But this year the campaign has abandoned the Inside Write awards; there were only four entries. We are now launching the ‘Kick in the Pants’ award, as something of a reminder.

The campaign has seen a rise in public complaints about official language – and it is time for action. Last week’s public administration select committee report, Bad language: the use and abuse of official language, confirms everything the campaign has been saying for the past 30 years. The committee has the answer: use plain English. But will the civil servants be allowed to do so?

Chrissie Maher OBE, the founder of the Plain English Campaign, understands that this is a long-term struggle. “I set out to battle with civil servants in the early 1970s,” she remembers. “Firstly, to pull at their heart strings, bringing and showing them the pain that their complicated forms were creating. Secondly, I wanted to ask for their help in getting their communications right, working together for both the public and their own staff. And we managed to do this very successfully for a while. In fact, I know we had the best civil service in the world at that time.

“That feeling of working together to get it right first time has been lost. Is the change due to lack of budget, changes in staff, or just plain apathy? They do lots of ‘engaging’ and ‘consultations’, but they don’t listen.

“There are more than 1,000 more senior officials now than back in the 1990s, but the numbers of ‘foot-soldiers’ have dwindled. The excuses for no action are: ‘No time, no money’. So the outsourced agencies are left to create jargon that litters the fancy web pages and well-bound reports. They are all talking to themselves and only communicating with a minority who share the same mumbo jumbo.”

“How can it change?” Chrissie asks. “Just as it did previously, in 1983. Re-train and refresh existing communication skills. Look at the department as a whole and understand that, as a civil servant, you should care that the public understands the information. But this time, keep it as a priority, not a ‘project’.”

Of course, the campaign is pleased to see that work is still going on in places where we sowed the seeds of plain English years ago. The Civil Service Award for Communications – won this year by HMRC’s self-assessment online publicity drive – recognises and encourages achievement. But this project represents a very small part of a vast organisation, and the question put recently by former information commissioner Richard Thomas remains powerful. “It’s not just about having an indicator of how well the organisation is doing from its own point of view,” he said. “The question is: how well is the organisation doing from the user’s point of view?”

The campaign could answer that question in broad terms for Mr Thomas by sending him the daily complaints received from the public. In his new role as chair of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council, Mr Thomas has told Civil Service World (see 23 Sept, p3) that the use of jargon will be included in the official complaints process. We look forward to seeing him make an impact in the field and, ultimately, to permanent improvement in the way that civil servants talk to the public – and to one another.