GOV UK content style guide

	A	B
1	A, As	The top grade in A levels. Use the symbol * not the word ‘star’. No apostrophe in the plural.
2	A level	No hyphen. Lower case level.
3	Abbreviations and acronyms	The first time you use an abbreviation or acronym explain it in full on each page unless it’s well known, like UK, DVLA, US, EU, VAT and MP. This includes government departments or schemes. Then refer to it by initials, and use acronym Markdown so the full explanation is available as hover text. If you think an acronym is well known, please provide evidence that 80% of the UK population will understand and commonly use it. Evidence can be from search analytics or testing of a representative sample. Do not use full stops in abbreviations: BBC, not B.B.C.
4	the academies programme	Lower case.
5	academy	Only use upper case when referring to the name of an academy, like Mossbourne Community Academy. See also 'Titles'
6	academy converters	Lower case.
7	academy order	Lower case.
8	academy trust	Lower case.
9	Access to Work	Upper case when referring directly to the actual programme, otherwise use lower case.
10	accountancy service provider	Upper case when referring to the business area covered by Money Laundering Regulations. Do not use the acronym.
11	Accounts Office	Upper case.
12	Activation PIN	Upper case. Activation PIN has been changed to Activation Code on outgoing correspondence from the Government Gateway. Until all hard-coded instances of Activation PIN have been removed from the Online Services pages, use ‘Activation Code (also known as Activation PIN)’.
13	act, act of Parliament	Lower case. Only use upper case when using the full title: Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, for example.
14	Active voice	Use the active rather than passive voice. This will help us write concise, clear content.
15	Addresses in the UK	Start each part of the address on a new line. You should: write the town and postcode on separate lines not use commas at the end of each line write the country on the line after the postcode, not before only include a country if there is a reasonable chance that the user will be writing to the address from a different country For example: HM Revenue and Customs - Child Benefit Office PO Box 1 Newcastle Upon Tyne NE88 1AA United Kingdom
16	Addressing the user	Address the user as ‘you’ where possible and avoid using gendered pronouns like ‘he’ and ‘she’. Content on the site often makes a direct appeal to citizens and businesses to get involved or take action: ‘You can contact HMRC by phone and email’ or ‘Pay your car tax’, for example.
17	Adoption Register	Upper case when referring to the national Adoption Register. Lower case in subsequent mentions that do not use the full term: the register
18	adviser	For example, special adviser. Not advisor, but advisory is the correct adjective.
19	ages	Do not use hyphens in ages unless to avoid confusion, although it’s always best to write in a way that avoids ambiguity. For example, ‘a class of 15 16-year-old students took the A level course’ can be written as ‘15 students aged 16 took the A level course’. Use ‘aged 4 to 16 years’, not ‘4-16 years’. Avoid using ‘the over 50s’ or ‘under-18s’. Instead, make it clear who’s included: ‘aged 50 years and over’ and ‘aged 17 and under’.
20	agile	Upper case when referring to the Agile Manifesto and principles and processes, otherwise use lower case.
21	allow list	Use allow list as the noun and allow as the verb. Do not use white list or whitelist.
22	al-Qa’ida	Not al-Qaeda or al-Qaida.
23	alternative provision	Lower case.
24	American and UK English	Use UK English spelling and grammar. For example, use ‘organise’ not ‘organize’, ‘modelling’ not ‘modeling’, and ‘fill in a form’, not ‘fill out a form’. American proper nouns, like 4th Mechanized Brigade or Pearl Harbor, take American English spelling.
25	Ampersand	Use and rather than &, unless it’s a department’s logo image or a company’s name as it appears on the Companies House register.
26	animal health	Lower case.
27	antisocial	No hyphen.
28	applied general qualifications	Lower case.
29	apprenticeship programme	Lower case.
30	A-road	Hyphenated.
31	armed forces	Lower case.
32	arm’s length body	Apostrophe, no hyphen.
33	assembly ministers	Lower case.
34	Attendance Allowance	Upper case.
35	Bacs (Bankers Automated Clearing System)	Acronym should come first as it’s more widely known than the full name. Please note that the acronym has changed to Bacs.
36	backend	Used in a technical context, not “back-end” or “back end”.
37	Bank details	When adding bank details: do not use a table - use bullet points and a lead-in line instead use spaces rather than hyphens in sort codes - 60 70 80 (not 60-70-80) avoid using spaces in account numbers unless they are very long (like an International Bank Account Number) For example: Transfer the fee to the following account within 5 working days of emailing your form: sort code - 80 26 50 account number - 10014069 account name - The Public Trustee
38	baseline	One word, lower case.
39	Behavioural Insights team	Upper case if it’s a specific, named team. Always lower case for team and generic names like research team, youth offending team.
40	Bereavement Payment	Upper case.
41	Blind Person’s Allowance	Upper case.
42	block list	Use block list as the noun and block as the verb. Do not use black list or blacklist.
43	blog post	Use 2 words when referring to an article published on a blog. A ‘blog’ is the site on which a blog post is published.
44	board	Always lower case unless it’s part of a proper title: so upper case for the Judicial Executive Board, but lower case for the DFT’s management board.
45	Brackets	Use (round brackets). Do not use round brackets to refer to something that could either be singular or plural, like ‘Check which document(s) you need to send to DVLA.’ Always use the plural instead, as this will cover each possibility: ‘Check which documents you need to send to DVLA.’ Use [square brackets] for explanatory notes in reported speech or for placeholder text: “Thank you [Foreign Minister] Mr Smith.” “Witnessed by [signature of witness].”
46	Brexit	You can use the term ‘Brexit’ to provide historical context, but it’s better to use specific dates where possible. For example, use: ‘31 December 2020’ rather than ‘Brexit’ or ‘when the UK left the EU’ ‘before 31 December 2020’ rather than ‘during the transition period’ ‘after 1 January 2021’ rather than ‘after the transition period’
47	BTEC National Diploma	Upper case.
48	Bullet points and steps	You can use bullets to make text easier to read. Make sure that: you always use a lead-in line you use more than one bullet the bullets make sense running on from the lead-in line you use lower case at the start of the bullet you do not use more than one sentence per bullet - use commas or dashes to expand on an item you do not put ‘or’ or ‘and’ after the bullets you do not make the whole bullet a link if it’s a long phrase you do not put a semicolon at the end of a bullet there is no full stop after the last bullet Bullets should normally form a complete sentence following from the lead text. But it’s sometimes necessary to add a short phrase to clarify whether all or some of the points apply. For example, ‘You can only register a pension scheme that is one of the following:’ The number and type of examples in a list may lead the user to believe the list is exhaustive. This can be dealt with by: checking if there are other conditions (or if the list is actually complete) listing the conditions which apply to the most users and removing the rest consider broader terms in the list which capture more scenarios (and could make the list exhaustive) creating a journey to specialist content to cover the remaining conditions
49	business continuity management	Lower case.
50	business plan	Lower case. Do not use upper case even in the title of a business plan publication.
51	business statement	Lower case.
52	C of E
53	cabinet
54	Capital Gains Tax
55	Capitalisation
56	care worker
57	chair of governors
58	chairman, chairwoman, chairperson
59	Change notes
60	changelog
61	CHAPS (Clearing House Automated Payment System)
62	checkbox
63	chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) materials.
64	chief constable
65	Child Benefit
66	Child Tax Credit
67	childcare
68	Childcare Grant
69	childminder, childminding
70	Children in Need
71	Civil Contingencies Secretariat
72	Civil Service
73	civil servants
74	classwork
75	click
76	coalition
77	CO2
78	coastguard
79	code of practice
80	command paper
81	commercial software
82	Community Care Grant
83	community resilience
84	community, voluntary and foundation schools
85	competence order
86	Components that control other components
87	conduct of business rules
88	Construction Industry Scheme
89	Construction Industry Scheme Online/CIS Online
90	consultation responses
91	continuous improvement
92	contractions
93	co-operation
94	core standards
95	Corporation Tax
96	Corporation Tax for Agents online service
97	Corporation Tax Online
98	COTS
99	council
100	Council Tax