To consider the
report
Decision:
To accept the report
Minutes:
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 was encouraging.
In response to a question
regarding the impact assessment template, it was noted that every
Cabinet decision required an equality assessment
with language included as one element of this assessment. It was noted that the Commissioner's Office
was developing guidelines which would look
specifically at some fields to ensure compliance.
In response to a comment
regarding the language capability and the organisation's duty to meet the standard with opportunities available to promote learning Welsh if it was not a requirement of the post, it was noted
that the standard reached and surpassed
the requirements and that there was a responsibility to protect this.
RESOLVED to accept the report.
Supporting documents: