Are our decisions easy to read?

I’m pleased to share a new report: Evaluation of plain language decision writing. This report evaluates how easy it is to read our decisions.

People need to be able to read and understand the decisions we send them – it’s fundamental to accessing justice. Since 2017, we’ve been working to make our decisions easier to read. We conducted this evaluation to:

• find out if the work we’ve done so far is effective
• learn what we can do to improve.

We consulted 3 groups of people: people who have represented themselves, third-party experts in plain language, and Social Security Tribunal members.

Based on these consultations, we’ve identified 7 recommendations for improvement, including:  

• making the result of the appeal clearer and stating the result earlier
• clearly stating the next steps for all appeals, regardless of outcome
• giving members better access to tools and supports

To see the full list of recommendations and learn how we’ll be addressing them, check out our Management Response and Action Plan.