Our voice
Writing and speaking
Social security is a human right. Any of us, at any time, may need this support.
At Social Security Scotland we aim to:
- serve everyone in Scotland equally
- treat everyone with dignity, fairness and respect
- make sure everyone can use our services
How we write and speak is an important part of achieving this.
Tone
Our tone of voice defines how we bring our values to life when writing and speaking. We follow guidelines to make sure we communicate in a way that’s:
Respectful and inclusive
We do not tell people what to think and we treat people as equals.
We use a friendly tone to help people feel included, at ease and speak openly. This means we:
- use contractions like 'you're' and 'we're'
- it's 'your application' and 'we' or 'us' rather than always saying 'Social Security Scotland' or 'the Scottish Government'
Knowledgeable and professional
We have the expertise and information that our clients need. We can build trust by sharing our knowledge.
However, these subjects can be complex. So, it's important that we share what we know in ways that are easy to understand. This means we:
- avoid unnecessary words
- only cover one idea a sentence
- put the most important information at the start
- use headings, lists and numbered steps
Positive but realistic
We're here to provide a service and support people. Our communications should be helpful and encouraging but practical. We keep things simple and always explain terms and statistics.
We've developed 2 guides that make sure we communicate in a way that’s:
- easy to understand
- accessible to different people with different needs
- inclusive of everyone’s identity