Ministerial briefing notes can be very difficult to write. The note needs to be both brief, and contain all the information the minister needs to know to take action. There is a tension there. This course presents ideas, principles and approaches to help writers craft ministerial briefing notes that contain relevant information that is easy for readers to find, understand and use.
This is the first unit in this course. Please view our Acknowledgement of Country.
… or read the transcript of the video below.
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Transcript of introductory video
Ministerial briefing notes are one of the most difficult documents to write, but they are an essential tool in the processes of government. Similar sorts of documents are also used in many corporate environments as well.
This course aims to provide some insights and tools to make the writing process more effective and more efficient when we’re crafting these documents. We examine what the briefing note is intending to do, and what makes a good one.
We’ll explore the overall structure and look at a common briefing note template. Now of course, not every organisation uses the same template for the briefing note, but there’s enough similarity between different templates. And I’m sure you’ll find the ideas helpful.
Most templates use a layered approach that places the big picture information at the beginning and then progressively dives down to finer and finer layers of detail. Using an overall structure like this recognises that not every part of every briefing note will be read by every reader, and this layered approach provides choice for readers to extract the amount of detail that they need for their purposes.
In this course, we’ll be talking about the content required at each of the headings in the template, as well as providing some thinking prompts for exploring and constructing that information.
And we’ll also talk about the importance of using talking headings, especially in that section that’s often called key issues. That’s the section where we provide the arguments for the briefing notes, the reasons for acting on the recommendation.
And this course is not just theory. We work through a very simple example briefing note. I do want to demonstrate how these ideas work out in a real document.