Plain Language Awards

Celebrate the stories of our clearest business communicators

Finalist: Best Plain English Turnaround 2017

New Zealand Insolvency and Trustee Service


Document name

Types of Creditor


Judges’ comments

The team responsible for this transformation did a nice job of restructuring, improving the headings, and chunking the content. The document has a pleasing appearance. It was easy to navigate, definitely more so than the original.

Putting the section headings up front, with links to the relevant material, was very useful. We were impressed with their detailed comments and pleased to see they did some research on the user experience.


Media statement

The New Zealand Insolvency and Trustee Service is pleased to be recognised as a finalist for Best Plain English Turnaround in the 2017 Plain English Awards.

We provide information and options for people to help them deal with the social and economic impacts of unmanageable debt. We used the principles of plain English to help us to help those in need by removing technical explanations from our website and simplifying the content, whilst keeping important information like the significant potential consequences of entering a formal insolvency option.

We have received very positive feedback since making the changes, with a high proportion of our clients telling us that they found the information on the new site easier to understand.

The Plain English Awards are a great way to encourage organisations to focus on clear communications and plain English, and we will continue to apply these principles in all our communications. We’d like to thank WriteMark and the category sponsors for supporting this movement.

Robyn Cox
National Manager