Agenda, decisions and minutes

To receive apologies for absence.

Councillor Elin Walker Jones

To receive any declaration of personal interest

No Declaration of Personal Interest were raised.

No declaration of personal interest were raised.

To note any items that are a matter of urgency in the view of the Chairman for consideration

No Urgent Business’ were raised.

No Urgent Business’ were raised.

The Chairman shall propose that the minutes of the previous meeting of this committee held on 19 October 2021 be signed as a true record  (attached).

The minutes were noted to be correct.

The Chair signed the minutes of the previous meeting of this committee held on 19 October, 2021 as a true record subject to including Councillor Eric M Jones as present at the meeting.

Present information about the Education Department's contribution to the implementation of the Language Policy and Welsh Language Promotion Plan in Gwynedd

To accept the report and note the observations received.

Submitted - a report by the Cabinet Member for Education, Councillor Cemlyn Williams, providing details on the Education Department's contribution to the implementation of the Language Policy and Welsh Language Promotion Plan in Gwynedd. He took advantage of the opportunity to outline some of the Education Department's highlights along with the future challenges it faced.

Attention was drawn to the “Immersion Education System towards 2032 and beyond” and an investment of £1.1 million of Welsh Government Welsh-medium education capital funding to establish new immersion education sites in Tywyn and Bangor, as well as improving existing facilities in Porthmadog. Reference was made to the innovative and ambitious digital learning strategy which aimed to provide laptops and/or digital devices to all pupils and teachers in the county to ensure easy access to work at school and at home. The Head of the Education Department reiterated that the hope was to configure the devices in Welsh which would enable the children to communicate with their families and friends in Welsh and would encourage them to use the Welsh language on social media.

In the context of some of the challenges, concern was expressed that the standard of the Welsh language and social language skills were deteriorating in some areas during the pandemic. This was considered inevitable maybe, as there was less contact between pupils and their teachers / assistants, despite a consistent effort from schools to maintain contact with pupils in an attempt to regain ground. Reference was made to the challenge of recruiting staff with suitable qualifications to enable the provision of Welsh language services / education and also to the lack of language therapists and education psychologists that, albeit a national concern, was seen to be worse in Gwynedd due to the need for a bilingual service. It was reiterated that there were regular discussions with the Welsh Government to seek to mitigate the problem.

Thanks were expressed for the report.

Committee members were given an opportunity to ask further questions - and the Education Officers answered these.

Would it be possible to work proactively by seeking to change the career paths of teaching staff, (by funding relevant training schemes) to become education psychologists?

The Education Department had been proactive locally in an attempt to recruit education psychologists. The bursaries had been a success. Another proposal was to seek to develop interest through a post-16 provision and to target aspects of apprenticeship in the field.

Reference was made to the fact that the percentage use of the Welsh language as a first language in the foundation phase in Gwynedd was higher than in any other county in Wales, but there was a decline at the end of year 9. It was asked whether the decline was general across the County or was it specific to some locations only?

It appeared that when pupils chose their GCSE subjects and their career paths at the end of Year 9 that a vast majority of them chose subjects taught through the medium of English.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To inform Members of the efforts of the Corporate Support Department to promote the use of the Welsh language.

To accept the report and note the observations received.

Submitted - the report of Councillor Nia Jeffreys, Cabinet Member for Corporate Support. It was noted that the Welsh language was one of the Department's main priorities and attention was drawn to some of the Department's main projects (Apprenticeships Project, Native Welsh Place Names Project, Jobs Advertising and the Development of Hunaniaith) along with the background work carried out by the Procurement Team. It was explained that pioneering work had been carried out in the Equality field to develop an integrated impact assessment template that set out the linguistic considerations within Equality impact assessments, and that this development had been adopted by the remaining five authorities in North Wales. This work was congratulated. It was explained that the department was prioritising recruiting more bilingual staff, especially in the legal department.

The Head of Corporate Support Department reiterated that all staff within the Department worked through the medium of Welsh. It was noted that the Welsh Language Unit was part of the Department and following the Cabinet's decision, it was intended to appoint a Principal Language Officer to lead Hunaniaith and develop it to be an independent entity outside the Council in future. 

It was explained that Keeping the Benefit Local Scheme had been developed to include 'social value' as part of the considerations for business contracts. Consequently, it was noted that developing Welsh language skills was included in contracts between the Council and external companies.

In the field of Job Advertising, it was noted that work had been done jointly with the Welsh Language Commissioner to be able to receive DBS forms in Welsh (rather than in English only) along with similar work to encourage issuing Welsh-only certificates in Wales along with bilingual certificates if registered in England.

It was emphasised that all apprentices joining the Council had agreed to invest in the Welsh language.

Appreciation for the virtual translation work provided over Zoom was expressed. It was explained that the Council had been required to use Zoom in order to provide translation services, although TEAMS was the formal resource used by the Council for virtual communication on a daily basis. The Translation Unit had now succeeded to adapt and train to provide the service on-line on Zoom.

It was noted that the Council had been collaborating with the IOSH body to use its resources in staff training sessions, specifically within Health and Safety. It was said that all of the resources had been provided in English in the past, but that the Council had pressed for permission to translate the resources to ensure that our staff could complete the work in Welsh.

Members were reminded that the Department was continuing to share its monthly Welsh language Tips to remind staff of various Welsh language grammar rules and that enabling services through the medium of Welsh and English was one of the main priorities of 'Workforce planning'.

Attention was drawn to an advertisement by Bangor University for a student to complete PhD research in the public use of Welsh  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To present information about the Department's contribution to promoting the Welsh Language   

To accept the report and note the observations received.

Submitted - the report of the Head of Housing and Property Department who explained briefly that the Department included a mix of front-line services which dealt with a number of customers and stakeholders who, in turn, required bilingual services and respect towards their chosen language (beyond Welsh and English in some circumstances)

It was highlighted that the Department prioritised compliance with the Council's Welsh Language Policy and its ability to offer services in Welsh to service users be it internally or externally. It was reported that according to the latest Language Designations Quarterly Report that 95% of Department staff reached or exceeded the Language Designations of their posts, which was slightly higher than the Council average of 92%.

In discussing some of the Department's highlights it was noted that with a number of projects, the Department was seeking to keep people in their homes, locally and by doing this they were strengthening the Welsh language in those communities. Attention was drawn also to the use of the Language in Construction Contracts - although English was used to gain access to the wider market, there were clauses within the contracts noting that any signs, information boards or circulars should be bilingual and that English only signs were not permitted. If the project was to include a public consultation, it was explained that contractors were expected to hold them in Welsh/bilingually or, if this was not possible, to provide representatives who were Welsh-speakers or to provide a translator. Reference was also made to the need for high value tenders to provide a Social Benefits Response.

It was noted that staff had attended language refresher courses and that more had been arranged for the future and it was intended to develop more specific training in Welsh in the field of Housing (most of the training took place in English).  Although this did not obstruct or prevent our ability to operate, the main aim was to introduce the training in Welsh, or bilingually.

Thanks were expressed for the report.

Members were given an opportunity to ask questions and offer observations. 

Did the Housing Department intend to build its own community housing or purchase terraced housing stock in urban areas to remove them from the market / private rented housing situation which led to the use of Airbnb or houses of multiple occupancy?

The Department focussed on open market housing and empty homes, but was now looking to purchase terraced housing for the use of local people. It was intended to purchase houses, however, the housing market at the moment was 'hot' and the Department had had to put measures in place to respond quickly to the market. It was reiterated that interest had been expressed in a number of houses that were for sale, and that one had been purchased so far.

RESOLVED

To accept the report and note the observations received.

To share the consultation documents and invite comments from the members on the contents of the consultation.  The Language Unit will prepare a response to the consultation based on the comments received.

To accept the report and ask the Language Unit to draw up a response to the consultation based on the observations received by Members.

Submitted by the Language Adviser - documents for information relating to Welsh Government's consultation on the Welsh Language Communities Housing Scheme. It was explained that the consultation offered steps to seek to address the current housing situation and derived from the findings of Simon Brookes' report in 2021. It was noted there was an opportunity for the Committee to submit comments that would be added to the Language Unit's response to the Consultation.

Concerns were highlighted,

·          that the consultation on the impact of the pandemic on Welsh speaking community groups, that was referred to in the consultation, had been held during the pandemic and therefore it was considered that its true impact was yet to be apparent. It was proposed that a more recent consultation was needed to provide a more complete picture.

·          community enterprises were under a lot of pressure and were reliant on    volunteers as they were a contact point for a number of people in the community.

Observations arising from the ensuing discussion:

·         It was asked whether there was any data about how community groups / community enterprises survived during the COVID period. It was noted that the Language Unit did not have data relating to a specific period.

·         The consultation was welcomed, but concern was expressed about the pressure and increasing expectations placed on social enterprises and that collaborative support was needed specifically for less established community enterprises as there was a concern that these would be forgotten.

·         It was emphasised there was a need to be able to prove the local need, and it was local enterprises that could often best identify that need. Attention was drawn to good practice in terms of part-ownership in the Llanuwchllyn area and it was noted that there was a need to collaborate with social enterprises to ascertain the genuine need for housing. The need to seek further explanation from the Government about its intentions in relation to the strategy of reaching a million Welsh-speakers and how it intended to create jobs was needed. It was further asked if maintaining jobs in Welsh-speaking areas was part of these plans.

·         It was also suggested there was a need to be able to act immediately following the recommendations of this consultation and the recent consultation on Planning matters, rather than having to wait until the next LDP was published,

·         Concern was expressed that the Government could be slow in processing the policies on converting general homes to holiday homes and there was a need for this to be resolved as soon as possible

·         It was asked whether it could be possible to add language awareness in education as part of the 'general contribution question' section expressing that this was a major consideration within Welsh-speaking communities.

·         It was noted that the Commission and the Government should lead by example and ask the remainder of the authorities in Wales to use the Welsh language as its main language of internal administration.

·         It was noted that it was crucial that the right foundations were  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

To present the findings of the research for members’ information.

·       To accept the report and to note the observations

·       Refer a request from Committee members to the relevant Cabinet Member to consider updating the information in future

The Research and Information Manager submitted the results of the research. It was reported that this research was work commissioned by the Council's Leadership Team in 2018 to gather evidence in the field so that information would be available for various Council functions in the fields of housing, planning, the Welsh language etc.

The research involved visiting every new house that had been built in Gwynedd within a specific period, asking some questions about who lived there, where they had moved from and their reasons for choosing a new house in that area. They were also asked about where they had lived previously to gather evidence of the housing supply chain before moving to a new house. It was noted that there were two versions of the results - a concise version and a complete version detailing the findings. It was explained that the intention was to submit the information as part of a large group event on housing issues during 2020, however, in light of Covid, holding such an event would not have been practical. It was reiterated, because the local housing market had been transformed during the Covid period, that the research results had become dated earlier than expected.

It was highlighted that all Council elected members had received an opportunity to receive a presentation on the work at a briefing session in December 2021.

Some of the main findings were discussed elaborating on the research results on Language issues

·         That the proportion of new housing residents who were Welsh-speakers (namely 68%) was very similar to the proportion for the general Gwynedd population at the last Census (namely 65%).

·         There was a pattern for every age group that indicated that younger new housing residents were more likely to speak Welsh than older residents, with 91% of 3-11 year olds and 68% of 25-44 year olds able to speak Welsh. The lowest percentage (47%) belonged to the 65 - 84 year old age group.

·         That residents of new housing in "small" developments (four houses or less) were slightly more likely to be able to speak Welsh than the residents of larger developments (74% as opposed to 66%). Also, a slightly higher percentage of new social rented housing residents spoke Welsh compared with the residents of other types of new housing (74% compared to 68%)

Gratitude was expressed for the report

An opportunity was given for committee members to ask further questions - and the Officers answered those questions

When would the results of Census 2021 be published?

Some results were to be published during May / June and then in phases until the end of October 2022. It was reiterated that no specific timetable had been published.

The Department was congratulated on completing very interesting research. Was there a need for a third option in asking what the main language of the home was? It was asked whether the finding reflected the general trend?

It was accepted that there was a need to consider an additional question, however,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.