I recently read the Audited Annual Accounts of the City of Edinburgh Council for the year 2023/24. I was overwhelmed by the number of acronyms used in the report. There are so many that after the first few pages, I was no longer reading to understand what was written, my brain automatically switched on to lookout for the next acronym.
They start slowly with two well-known ones on the second page ‘FTE staff’, which generally means full time employees but is not explained and their CLT, Corporate Leadership Team, followed on page 3 by two completely unknown acronyms: the ‘EIJB’s budget frameworks’ and the SIMD. I didn’t know what the EIJB was, though I guessed that the E stands for Edinburgh, but I had to read on to page 5 to find it is the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board. Not to be confused with a fellow JB the LVJB, Lothian Valuation Joint Board. SIMD is one of the key tools for identifying concentrations of deprivation: the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. Page 4 has none and a quiet page 5 mentioned MTFP: Medium-Term Financial Plan.
The acceleration starts on page 6 with five: KPI, RAG, SCQF, LMS and LEAMS. KPI is known the world over but SCQF is only recognised in Scotland: Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework. RAG is interesting and doesn’t have anything to do with a piece of cloth. Edinburgh assigns a status to each KPI based on traffic lights. R red represents KPIs well behind target, A amber represents KPIs just behind target and G green those ahead of target, which they call RAGs. But they push the traffic light imagery well beyond normal limits because they have blue and grey RAGs. KPI’s with no targets for the year are ‘assigned a blue RAG status’ and those use only for monitoring are ‘assigned a grey RAG status’ or to be more specific ‘assigned a grey red amber green status’.
LMS is the beautiful Litter Monitoring Score and LEAMS, the Local Environmental Audit and Management System. Things become complicated on page 7 with LGBF, BVAR and a BVA Action Plan which they decided not to call BVAAP. Thereafter acronyms accelerate until a climax on page 33, where would you believe there are eleven: IAS, IFRS, PPP, DBFM (twice), IFRIC12, PPP1 (twice), PPP2 (twice), JGHS, QHS (twice), a wieldy DBFMCO and finally HRA. I would have liked an explanation for DBFMCO, but must remain ignorant. I admit that after page 33, these eleven were so overwhelming, that my brain went back to understanding the text and stopped searching for other acronyms.
The other notable find in the report is the surprising ‘golden thread’. It appears three times in 2022/23, but only twice in this one. It must be starting to fray with so much use. The report mentions it in relation to the Edinburgh Partnership Community Plan 2022-28:
“This plan stands as one part of a golden thread linking and guiding operations through to the shared goals and commitments of the Edinburgh Partnership …”
I guess people in Edinburgh and all of the council know what blouse, blazer or kilt the golden thread is weaving, or given they use the expression ‘embedded a golden thread’, perhaps they are sewing a mattress. To those living outside the city, the golden thread is as explicit as the golden goose.
The Council communicates intensely on planning. They trumpet their strategic plan, business plan and their Planning and Performance Framework which they do not call PAPF. They go much further than other city councils with their plans which are “translated into clear actions and performance measures which are appropriately monitored, actioned and delivered.” Luckily they decided not to use an acronym with their dynamic ‘monitored, actioned and delivered’, otherwise the sentence would read:
“their plans are translated into clear actions and performance measures which are appropriately MAD”.