Guidance on the structure and content of reports
Whenever you write a report you should think 'What is the best way to handle the material to make the report readable and effective?'
Who are you writing for?
Key things to bear in mind are your audiences and what you want to say to them. The main audiences will usually be the authority and the complainant, but there may be others such as:
- other councils
- other people in the council's area
- local government and other media
- academics and lawyers
- advisory sector
- professionals
Always think about these issues and discuss them with the AO when writing the report.
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Telling the story
As a rule, simplest is best. A report is essentially just the story of what happened. If you were telling it orally you would automatically select the facts that move the story on and affect its conclusions. Wherever possible, try to write reports as a simple narrative, as if telling the story to a reasonably interested and intelligent person (not a colleague or 'expert'). Or think of it as a detailed report for one of the quality newspapers.
Always use plain language: this is not the same as 'dumbing down'. The Commission has guidance on plain language, and training is available [Available to LGO staff only on intranet, see: Guidance on writing and house style].
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Start the process quickly
Writing the report is easiest when the investigation is fresh in your mind. In most cases, you will never know as much about the complaint as you do on the day you do the interviews: names, dates and events are all familiar to you and come as second nature. Try to set aside, on that day or the next, at least enough time to get down the bare bones of the narrative. An extra hour now can save you many later on, because at that point you do not have to piece the story together laboriously from notes - you know it by heart. Of course, some people will prefer to mull the subject over for a little while before starting, and perhaps get their thoughts down the next day. The key thing to bear in mind is that, the longer you leave it, the more difficult it becomes.
Some people prefer to work from handwrittten notes that record the key events and facts. Some construct charts and diagrams. Others like to 'think on screen'. Everyone will evolve a method that suits himself or herself. Whatever the method, though, it pays to strike while the iron is hot. It is counter-productive to be fussy about writing style or completeness of information on the first attempt. You may feel you have to stop and delve in your notes and files for a date or a name: but try, instead, just using a symbol you will recognise easily later on (like the @ symbol we use in our standard letters), and replacing it with the correct information in later versions.
Some investigators prefer to draft before they do the fieldwork. This can be helpful because it makes the "gaps in knowledge" which need to be filled by the fieldwork clearer. And having identified the gaps, it then becomes easier to draft questions designed to fill those gaps. This is unlikely to be abortive work because even if the report is not issued it can be used at an appendix to a provisional view letter.
These are not prescriptive instructions, but just practical suggestions you can try. The one essential to take from them is this: do not delay starting the report-writing process.
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Structure
In a lot of cases the material itself will dictate how you tell the story. If, for example, there are several interwoven strands, it may be easier to follow each through as a separate narrative and then explain, in a later section, how they intersect. Sometimes the inter-relation of the various elements is so complicated that it needs to be broken down in some other way - such as by time periods. Again, a good test is to think how you would approach it if telling the story orally. There is no standard or 'correct' structure and you should think in each case about the best way to get the information across.
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Use graphics
It is easy to include graphics such as diagrams, maps, plans, drawings, graphs and photographs. They can be anonymised quite simply. They can, as the saying goes, be worth a thousand words. For example, a simple plan or photograph showing two properties can replace several difficult paragraphs of
"...approximately eight metres from the western elevation at an angle of 45° to the ground floor living room window..."
Graphics inserted in the body of the report, like illustrations in a textbook, are usually more effective than attachments.
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Dates
Too much reliance on chronology is off-putting. It is a trap investigators fall into because a report is often written from the document file, and so slavishly follows the correspondence. This can make a report inaccessible to an external audience. Many reports (at least in their earliest drafts) contain passages like
"On 4 December Mr Oak wrote to the council requesting a reply to his letter of 2 December. The council replied on 7 December saying it would consider his request..."
Generally, it is much better to summarise ("Between x and y Mr Oak wrote a total of 17 letters to the council asking for further information ..."). If for some reason you need to record every last incident or item of correspondence, think about including a summary or outline in the main report, and listing the detail in a separate schedule.
It is usually best not to use the documents file as the immediate source for the report. Using notes, summaries, etc makes for a more efficient narrative.
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Legal and administrative background
A long 'legal and admin' section at the beginning of the report is often a barrier rather than an aid to reading the report. It is likely to discourage third parties from reading it. Unless there is a particular reason not to do so, it can be relegated to an appendix or attachment.
It is important to include only material that is directly relevant to the story. The standard report paragraphs contained in the subject-specific practice notes can be a good starting point, but care should be taken to ensure the paragraphs used are directly relevant to the maladministration. They may therefore need editing or changing so as to concisely set out the relevant law and guidance. Once again, a guide is the idea of telling the story to a reasonably intelligent lay person. What would s/he need to know about the relevant law in order to appreciate its importance to this particular case?
It can be useful to bring the legal and administrative information in only at the point where it becomes relevant to the story. If you were talking the case through with someone you might, for instance, say
"... now, what the council normally does in these circumstances is ..."
In a report you might say at that point
"... the Council has a policy for dealing with such cases, which requires it to ... The full text of the policy appears in paragraph 3 of the Legal and Administrative Background, at Appendix 1 to this report".
Law can often be dealt with in the same way.
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Using attachments
Wherever you can, put into an attachment or appendix any peripheral information that does not move the narrative forward. The 'story telling' test is that this would be the sort of information about which you would say "I'll tell you more about that later if you need to know".
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Conclusions
Conclusions must include the Ombudsman's decision and the reasons for it. They should say clearly whether there has been maladministration and what, if any, injustice has flowed from it. Where applicable, a recommended remedy should be included.
The Ombudsman's personal preferences will usually dictate the style of the conclusions.
The essential thing to remember about the content of the conclusions is that every fact on which you rely in the conclusions must appear in the factual part of the report. The test is simple: you should be able to cross-refer each step of the argument in the conclusions to a specific paragraph in the report or attachments.
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Summary
Summaries are often an afterthought, but they should not be. The summary is usually the source of the press release for the report, so it might be the only thing about the report a wider public is ever likely to see. For this reason it is important to take particular care in writing the summary. When you write it, good questions to ask are 'What is interesting about this case?' or 'Why did we decide this case should go to report?' 'Is there a particular human interest angle I should emphasise?'
You should include in the summary enough information for someone to get a clear idea of what the complaint was about, any maladministration and injustice found and details of any recommended remedy.
Summaries should not:
- include jargon or abbreviations
- refer to any text in the report because they must be able to stand alone
- use the first person. The text should read 'The Ombudsman ...'.
See the comprehensive Guide to writing summaries.
Page last updated: March 2010
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Date Updated: 21/04/10