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With all the uproar about phone blagging and What Andy Coulson Knew, you may have missed the fact that the Public Administration Committee has been holding a public hearing on how the government uses, and misuses, language.

On the Today programme Matthew Parris made the usual cheap shots at “spin”, but what was more interesting was the way they singled out the creep of management speak (top down, bottom up, total envelope) into so called “accessible” language.

This isn’t about civil servant jargon - the deliverables and outputs and visions - it’s about new ways of saying nothing, using what appear to be nifty analogies (anyone remember Who Moved My Cheese?) to give the impression that was you are saying is easily understood, when in fact it’s even more obscure and nonsensical than ever.

As they played a clip of Liam Byrne, my first thought was that they hadn’t used a very good example, that he was actually using quite simple language.  It wasn’t until he reached the end that I got the point - or rather, realised that there was no point at all and he had just wasted several seconds of my life and doubtless several hundred valuable brain cells trying to figure out what on earth he was talking about. 

What we fondly used to call Fleet Street understood perfectly that simple, clear, impactful writing was the most difficult thing in the world - which is why traditionally the Sun’s sub-editors were the best paid and most jealously guarded.

I wouldn’t deny for a second that many people in corporate PR spend a great deal of time trying to say very little at length and with great authority. A vital skill in crisis management is the ability to talk to a journalist for ten minutes helpfully explaining what you can’t tell them anything at all. 

But being clear and making sense generally runs contrary to human nature - apart for the politicians, just listen to Vicky Pollard or the cute little monster in Outnumbered.  So everyone in the public sector should be making superhuman efforts to say what they actually mean. 

Three cheers to Liam Byrne, Cabinet Office Minister, and a guy credited with helping get Number Ten organised. He’s talking up an idea to empower the public and make our grand monolitic public services more accountable to the citizens they serve, using the web. A kind of Trip Advisor model where the public can talk up the good and raise issue with the bad. 

The issue of ensuring extra investment into public services isn’t just gobbled up into swathes of bureaucracy and instead produces better and more responsive services is as old as Beveridge. Various approaches have been tried by governments of all colours - swathes of targets, internal competition, constant cost-cutting. But the only way to gain a mandate from the public for more investment is to involve them.

The idea that we can have elections for health directors just wouldn’t take off. The beauty of the web, though, is that people can gather and have a collective voice if they have issue with how their services are organised, rather than feeling like they’re just a number. Interestingly, Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, is floating the idea of using the web to boost police engagement with the public on a day-to-day level - almost a virtual Dixon of Dock Green.

An active user base can drive change and innovation in services and more importantly make taxpayers feel as though they’re getting a voice in return for paying in.

I blogged about this exact topic a few months back and generated quite a reaction:)