Agenda item

To present information about the Department’s contribution to the Language Policy.

To accept the report and note the observations received.

The report was submitted by the Head of Department, and he highlighted the following main points in brief:

Members were reminded that the Department was unique in the sense that it was a mixture of services that supported the Council's other departments but also provided front-line services directly to the public.

He reported that all computers used by the Council had settings which ensured that Welsh was used as the computer's default language. He confirmed that computers that were provide to schools by the Digital Learning Service, which had become part of the department's services when the Council internalised the Cynnal company, also had Welsh language settings on them. He explained that every teacher had received a laptop, and work was underway to ensure that every secondary school pupil received a laptop to do their educational work.

He stated that the department had been receiving calls to try to revert their computers' language setting back to English as this change was taking place. He confirmed that this was possible, but officers encouraged everyone to try to continue with the Welsh systems. It was confirmed that the numbers of calls about the Welsh-medium computer systems had reduced significantly since the change was first made.

It was confirmed that the Gwynedd Pension Fund was moving to a new system called 'My Pension Online' which everyone who was a part of the fund would be able to access – whether they were still in employment or had retired. He elaborated that a Welsh language interface had been established for this system, and this interface would be shared with the seven other pension funds in Gwynedd. It was explained that these developments were taking place following the success of the Gwynedd Pension Fund stand at the National Eisteddfod in Boduan this year, where individuals had the opportunity to update information, learn more about the service, and where the Fund's new logo was revealed.

It was confirmed that the department had received a critical report from the Welsh Language Commissioner recently, after a member of the public had been sent a letter that was in English only. It was explained that this error had happened because of a fault in the templates used. Unfortunately, it was noted that a further error had occurred when sending a second letter to the individual, as it contained basic language errors and a mixture of Welsh and English words such as ‘Dear’ and ‘Yours Sincerely’. It was emphasised that this situation was a one-off, and that the department was doing everything in its ability to ensure that incidents like these were not repeated.

It was explained that 220 (98%) of the department's members of staff had completed the language self-assessment. It was added that 214 of those members met the language designation for their post, and that support was provided to anyone who felt that they did not reach their post's language designation to improve their skills. It was emphasised that there was no-one in the department without any Welsh language skills at all, therefore the fact that not everyone reached the language designation for their post did not affect the ethos and language of the office. It was acknowledged that the department's staff were more likely to complete the language self-assessment than some of the other departments because the nature of the work in the department was more technological, therefore the staff used computers more often.

The officer highlighted the fact that the Council was a host authority for several bodies such as the North Wales Corporate Joint Committee. He noted that since these bodies had been established with Gwynedd as the host authority, those bodies were run through the medium of Welsh naturally, and the department had a role to play in ensuring this.

Reference was made to the department's relationship with Audit Wales, noting that auditors who visited the Council were now individuals with Welsh language skills. It was noted that this was following a recent audit where no Welsh-speaking auditors had attended the meetings, as Audit Wales had not anticipated the need. It was confirmed that the department had since received feedback from Audit Wales stating that the auditors were glad of the opportunity to practise their language skills when visiting Cyngor Gwynedd.

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

They expressed their gratitude for the report.

RESOLVED

To accept the report and note the observations received.