Jargon "not delivering"

MPs have said the 18-month-old Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills “has not yet found its feet” and may take decades to make an impact. A select committee said its annual report showed signs of relying on jargon as a substitute for having a clear idea where it was going.

The committee responsible for scrutinising the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (Dius) described the annual report produced by the department last May as “written in an impenetrable style and ... peppered with jargon, unsupported assumptions and claims designed to promote Dius”. As a result its report had been “unhelpful” and too reliant on promoting a positive tone rather than providing clear and comprehensive information. The MPs said they suspected this had been in part because the results of Dius’s work “may take years, if not decades, to realize”. [BBC]

MPs tend to have extremely high tolerance levels for vapid jargon. If they’re telling you that you’ve overdone it and accuse you of hiding behind it, it’s time to ask yourself some serious questions. Not that you’ll be able to understand them.