2018 Compliance Report

I. Senior Agency Official for Plain Writing

Mark McHale, Associate Administrator for Office of Strategic Communications

Names of Plain Language coordinators within the agency:
Katherine Spivey, Plain Language Launcher, katherine.spivey@gsa.gov and plainlanguage@gsa.gov

II. Explain what specific types of agency communications have you released by making them available in a format that is consistent with the Plain Writing guidelines.

  • Press releases
  • GSA blog
  • Great Government through Technology blog
  • GSA.gov webpages
  • Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) letters to small business
  • Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) web pages
  • Insite (intranet)

III. Inform agency staff of Plain Writing Act’s requirements

  • Information on the Act is posted on InSite, the agency intranet, with shortcut.
  • Plain Language Group on Salesforce Chatter (formed 1/3/2012) over 70 members.
  • articles on ITC Connect
  • articles on GSA InSite

IV. Agency provided the following training sessions:

  • 2/20 PL basics class - 8 people
  • 3/1 FAS PL basics class - 27 people
  • 3/28 Region 4 (Atlanta) PL basics class - 30 people
  • 6/21 Office of Personnel Management - 10 people
  • 8/1 Personal Property Management PL basics people - 13 people
  • 8/23 - PL basics open to all government through DGU - 20 people
  • 11/8 - FAS QP PL basics class - 40 people
  • 11/13 LITE PL basics class - 26 people
  • 12/13 LITE PL basics class - 7 people
  • 38 new hires took the online course at GSA Online University
  • Content Management Platform (CMP) Plain Language course:
    • 5/29 - 43 AM session, 37 PM
    • 5/30 - 45 AM session, 37 PM
    • 7/31 - 33
    • 8/1 - 31
    • 8/2 - 31

Summit

7/20 - 95 in-person attendees to first-ever federal PL summit. Over 280 people attended via streaming video.

Office Hours

  • 1/11/18
  • 3/20/18
  • 3/28/18

Briefings

  • 5/17/18 Federal Asian Pacific American Council (FAPAC)
  • 6/13/18 Defense Threat Reduction Agency

V. Ongoing compliance/ sustaining change

Name of agency contact for compliance issues: Katherine Spivey

VI. Agency’s plain writing website

Website address: www.gsa.gov/plainlanguage

VII. Customer Satisfaction Evaluation after Experiencing Plain Writing Communications

In July 2011, we created and posted an email address, plainlanguage@gsa.gov, published on our plain language page, www.gsa.gov/plainlanguage. In 2018, no one contacted us asking to clarify any GSA.gov page. We did get spam.

Last Reviewed: 2021-11-30