Luton Borough Council

Capital letters

Quicklinks

Capital letters make reading more difficult and should only be used when necessary.

Do not use block capitals. EXTENSIVE RESEARCH HAS PROVED THAT TEXT WRITTEN ALL UPPER CASE (BLOCK CAPITALS) IS HARDER TO READ.

Always use lower case unless this guide indicates otherwise. Some common situations that cause confusion are made clear below.

This applies to titles, headings and sub headings too. Use sentence case rather that title case. This means only the first letter and any proper nouns are capitalised.

When to use capital letters

When using the council’s full title, or when naming specific departments, committees, divisions, offices or giving an individual’s job title in full, for example:

proper names - Luton Town Hall, Trevor Holden
proper names of organisations – Luton Council, Citizens Advice Bureau
full job titles in conjunction with postholder - John Smith, Refuse Collection Operative
place names - High Town, Lewsey, Bury Park
months, days and special days - June, Monday, Christmas Day
languages and nationalities - English, Indian, Chinese, Italian
using directorate names in full - Place and Infrastructure
council services - only when used in full, for example Communications and Marketing
titles of specific acts or bills: Housing Reform Bill (but use ‘the act’ or ‘the bill’ after the first time you use the full act or bill title)
committee names - established groups have initial capitals, for example, Overview and Scrutiny Committee, but lower case when talking about scrutiny committees in general

When writing about specific projects and schemes, partner organisations, outside bodies or government departments, such as:

Building Schools for the Future, Luton Excellence
Citizens’ Advice Bureau, Active Luton, Luton Culture
Farley Junior School, Luton Central Library, Stockwood Park Museum
Department for Children, Schools and Families
for titles that go before the name, such as President Trump (but Mr Trump is the president of the United States…)
for abbreviations and acronyms (eg NHS)
to start a sentence
for names of buildings, streets, areas and deities eg God, but he, him etc rather than He, Him

When not to use capital letters:

for the word council - unless part of a full title, for example Luton Council
for the word government – never ‘Government’ unless part of a specific name, for example Local Government Association
for words like team, service, act and board when used with in conjunction with the word 'the', for example 'the board', 'the team'
portfolio holder – when referring to councillors’ roles
for words like ‘county’, ‘district’ and ‘region’ unless they start a sentence
when referring generally to jobs or positions, for example, managers, officers, members, councillors, refuse collectors, librarians, social workers, headteachers
when referring generally to local authorities, borough councils, district councils, parish councils, town councils, health authorities, police authorities
for general terms – leisure centres, libraries, councils, charities
for the seasons of the year – spring, summer, autumn, winter
for points of the compass eg in the north / southwest of Luton /north-east England / the northeast – unless they are part of a proper name such as South Ward
for common digital words such as website, email and intranet
for nouns that are not proper names
for subject headings (apart from the first word)

Download a copy of our style guide