Issue - meetings

To consider the report

To accept the report

This report was submitted by the Language Advisor providing a brief update on work that had been going on over the past few months in respect of the Language Standards and the reporting duties. It was noted that, overall, the Service continued to be successful in complying with the requirements of the Standards, but there were some areas of concern arising, and definite themes did come up which provided specific work fields. It was reported that the Service had been proactive in liaising with the Commissioner during the past year, for the purposes of discussing some issues of importance and concern, such as the barriers we face when commissioning external systems and apps. It was added that, by having an open conversation, it was hoped to be able to develop a mutual understanding and good collaboration which would have a positive impact when trying to influence external bodies that were sometimes ignorant to the status of the language and the Standards' requirements in Wales - the impact assessment template was an example of this.

Reference was made to the challenges together with the developmental fields and attention was drawn to the skills report which expressed that the percentage able to speak Welsh within the Council was 'very high' with 99.1% meeting the requirements of the post. Further attention was drawn to the Language Commissioner's Assurance Report 2019-20 - Closing the Gap and that the report would be shared with the Members via e-mail. It was noted that it was intended to review the Language Policy in January as some clauses were not strong enough in some fields. It was noted that the work would be split into two categories - administrative changes, which mean minor changes to edit the wording, in order to make the requirements clearer and significant / principle changes which involve the need to discuss and seek agreement to implement in some contexts. It was reported that an item would be presented at the next meeting on the possible amendments to the Policy.

Members expressed their thanks for the report.

During the ensuing discussion, the following observations were made by Members:

·         That a Welsh image needed to be conveyed across the Council

·         A request for a language complaints report - a questionnaire on salt had been sent out to Highways Department staff in English only

·         That the use of social media was having an impact on the early years - a suggestion that this should be investigated

In response to an observation regarding having Welsh as a 'default' on social websites, it was reported that research on the public's use of the website was being carried out by the website team and the communication unit. The Cabinet Member added that this was a technical challenge, but that the number of hits on the Welsh version of the website  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8