Celebrating one year since the launch of Plain Numbers

Plain Numbers launched on July 1st 2021 with an event at the Bank of England, which showcased our initial trials research. Plain Numbers has grown into a dynamic and innovative organisation in the year since then.

We’re here to enable firms across all sectors to communicate numbers and data clearly and fairly and thereby support their customers to make informed decisions – and we are delighted to have made a such a strong start in our first year working towards this mission.

Our trials research

The research we launched in July last year has made a significant impact. It has been difficult for firms and other stakeholders to ignore the compelling evidence that consumer comprehension is strikingly low. The research demonstrated this to be the case across different forms of communication in different industries.

Even more importantly, the research proved it is possible to significantly improve comprehension. On average across the trials, the Plain Numbers Approach doubled the number of people who understood the communication.

The research also showed a significant gap between whether people thought they understood the communications and whether they really did. Using Plain Numbers closed this gap significantly, creating the conditions for more informed choice.

A growing community

Following the trials, interest in the way that Plain Numbers can support firms and consumers grew quickly.

We are delighted to have eighteen organisations as early adopters of a Plain Numbers Approach. These come from across different sectors and include some of the UK’s most recognisable brands as well as influential bodies.

We’re not stopping there and are in conversation with many potential Plain Numbers Partners across a variety of regulated industries. Over the next few years, we expect to see significant growth in the Plain Numbers community because we provide firms with a unique, evidence-based approach to enable clearer and fairer communication with customers and potential customers.

Implementing the Plain Numbers Approach

We are an organisation all about implementation, enabling real change is at the heart of how we work together with our Partners.

This starts with training cohorts of Plain Numbers Practitioners within Partner firms, who are then able to use the skills they have learnt to apply the Approach to any communications they are working on.

More than fifty people from our Partners organisations have completed, or are taking part in, Practitioner training and are now using the Plain Numbers Approach to improve consumer comprehension in their firms.

The comprehensive six-week programme has been extremely well received, with Practitioners giving fantastic feedback:

“Since taking the course I have realised that the Plain Numbers Approach will be transformative, for both consumer comprehension and business results.” – Plain Numbers Practitioner.

“Very insightful. I am confident that I have all the tools and support I need to implement the Plain Numbers Approach to my work. I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend it.” – Plain Numbers Practitioner.

We’ve already begun to work with an initial group of Partners to achieve Plain Numbers Certification for their most important documents. A Plain Numbers Certified document is one that has met the best possible standards in clear and fair communication of numbers and data.

“We are so proud to be one of the first to work with Plain Numbers.  Supporting customers is very important to us at Atlanta, and we’ve always prided ourselves on putting them first, being transparent and using plain language. But in financial services there are also a lot of numbers – and people who struggle to understand them.

Working with Plain Numbers made it plain to us that we could be doing more to help the 20 million or so Brits who have poor numeracy skills to understand what they’re getting from their Swinton, Carole Nash or Autonet policy - and to help them make informed financial decisions.

Over the last 12 months we have worked closely with Plain Numbers to help inform not only our communications but also share and educate our colleagues within Atlanta of why applying the Plain Numbers approach to our communications is so important.  We are also very proud to have 8 colleagues who have taken and passed their Plain Numbers practitioners training and look forward to more colleagues taking the course.” - Atlanta

 Becoming more influential and raising awareness

Our initial work has captured the attention of key stakeholders including regulators and industry bodies.

We were delighted that the work of Plain Numbers was cited twice in the FCAs consultation paper on a New Consumer Duty in December 2021. The new duty represents a significant shift in the regulatory landscape for the financial services sector. We’re helping our Partners to meet the requirements of a New Consumer Duty by giving an evidence based and practical way for firms to demonstrate that they are shifting their overall approach to consumer comprehension.

To help raise the profile of our work and encourage more people to take up best practice, we’ve also trained around sixty Plain Numbers Champions through our Advisory Partners. Plain Numbers Champions are people who are passionate about the Plain Numbers mission and want to amplify the importance and impact of our work.

We also attracted attention of the media from the launch and the announcement of our partnerships with the ABI and several major insurance and long term savings firms. We have brought insight to events such as the Building Societies Association Annual Conference and presentations to the Money Advice Liaison Group.

“We’re delighted at the progress we and our members have already made in incorporating the Plain Numbers approach into our work, but there is still more to do. Insurance and long terms savings products play a critical role in improving people’s financial resilience, and this partnership will help us to make sure our communications are as clear as possible." - Yvonne Braun, Director of Policy, Long-Term Savings & Protection, Association of British Insurers.

What to look out for next

Consumers and industry stakeholders should keep an eye out for more major firms becoming Plain Numbers Partners over the coming months and years as our community is set to continue to grow.

As we continue our impactful accreditation programme and implementation model, consumers will start to notice the Plain Numbers Certified logo on key communications they receive from firms.

In celebrating the first anniversary of our launch, we want to thank all the Partners, Practitioners and Champions we are working together with to achieve our mission. We still have much more to do. Our expanding team are here to build on the foundations laid in this first year, so more consumers can make more informed choices.