August 2025

  • Assistance - new entry, do not use assistance to refer to payments
  • Benefit, award, payment - updated to encourage plain language and clarify to use payment wherever you can, moved 'assistance' guidance to new entry
  • Naming services and systems - new entry
  • Personal Acting Body (PAB) and Corporate Acting Body (CAB) - new entry, either name the specific type or use client representative
  • Numbers - updated to include key advice on using numerals and naming parts of a form

June 2025

  • Financial hardship - new entry

May 2025

  • Application Capture Tool - new entry
  • Appointment Booking Tool - new entry
  • Links and URLs - update to advice on offline content and letters and forms
  • System names - removed entry, replaced with 'Application Capture Tool' and 'Appointment Booking Tool'

March 2025

  • Fonts - added detail on font size and templates
  • Team names - new entry
  • Job titles - moved to 'Writing about ourselves and our users' section

February 2025

  • Death - updated to explain nuance and encourage user testing
  • Legal language - added guidance to help users understand and meet legal requirements
  • Regulations and acts - added guidance more specific to Social Security Scotland
  • Stillbirth - new entry
  • Income - new entry
  • Suspensions - new entry

October 2024

  • Active voice - updated examples to be Social Security Scotland specific, added 'passive' to title
  • Capital letters - changed to more directive language
  • Links and URLs - added URL standards for each content type
  • Select and switch - new entry

September 2024

  • Links and URLs - confirmed no full stops at end of URLs in offline content

August 2024

  • Lists and steps - added subheading for nested lists and updated example
  • Manual letters - new entry
  • Straight-through processing - new entry
  • Text message - new entry

July 2024

  • Claim and claimant - removed applicant/application info
  • Writing about our users - removed info to focus on acceptable terms
  • Consultation - new entry

June 2024

  • Magnifying glass - new entry
  • Mailroom - new entry
  • Pre-election period (purdah) - new entry
  • R: drive - new entry
  • On SPM - new entry

May 2024

  • Allow list - new entry
  • Block list - new entry
  • Popup - new entry
  • Lists and steps - removed exception on full stops for KCM notifications

2023

  • Links and URLs - included info on not using 'click here'
  • Page titles - changed from 'Titles'
  • Timeframes - title changed from 'Days'
  • Webchat - new entry
  • Brackets - added warning on potential confusion
  • Dashes - rewritten for legibility
  • Lists and steps - new entry

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