readUp to 16 million adults - nearly half the workforce - are holding down jobs despite having the reading and writing skills expected of children leaving primary school.

The above sentence needs the reading ability of an undergraduate. That is the problem. People have spent years at school being told that good writing has big words.

The aim of writing is communication. Communication fails if it is not understood.

Here are some simple guidelines for accessible writing.

1. Short sentences aid understanding
2. Short words, big words baffle people.
3. Avoid Jargon, without telling people what it means
4. Short paragraphs. Paragraph breaks give the reader a break
5. Keep the item short - a single screen where possible
6. Use headings
7. Left align text

Testing for readability

Microsoft word has a readability checker built in. In Word press F1 and type readability and you will be shown how to turn them on.

Flesch reading scale

Rudolph Flesch developed a reading scale which Microsoft uses. The Flesch reading scale is shown here. It is on a scale of 1 to 100, the higher the number the easier it is to read.

90-100 : Very Easy
80-89 : Easy
70-79 : Fairly Easy
60-69 : Standard
50-59 : Fairly Difficult
30-49 : Difficult
0-29 : Very Confusing

This document excluding the first paragraph is rated at 71 on the Flesch scale
The first paragraph has a Flesch readability score of 40.