‘Good Progress’ In Implementing Welsh Language Standards But Questions Raised If Right Approach

Wrexham Council is ‘doing quite well’ at implementing Welsh Language Standards – however a lead councillor has questioned if the standards are the right way to go about things.

Councillors will receive and possibly discuss the annual monitoring report into Welsh language standards in Wrexham Council at the first Executive Board meeting of the new administration next week.

In line with the Welsh Language Standards the Council are required to draft an annual report that has to be on the Council’s site by the end of this month.

Wrexham Council say they have made ‘good progress’ over the last 12 months in terms of implementing the standards, whilst acknowledging there are ‘still changes to be made’ with the ‘occasional’ instance of non-compliance reported.

Prior to discussing the Council’s progress Deputy Leader Cllr Hugh Jones was keen to note: “It is important to note that the Welsh Government themselves have fully recognised now that the standards are complex and difficult for many councils and public bodies to comply with and have ordered a review into the standards.

“That review has been supported by former Chairman of the Welsh Language Board who has said standards are ‘complex’, in the meantime we are getting on and complying with them. We will be happy to contribute to any review the Welsh Government will carry out.”

Cllr Jones reiterated his previously made comments over preferring carrots than sticks.

He added: “In terms of the Council we are doing quite well, we are establishing Welsh Language Champions in each department in an attempt to encourage staff to learn the Welsh language. We have established a five year strategy that was agreed by the Executive Board, that is a promotional strategy for the Welsh language that we were required to produce by the Welsh Government.

“In terms of the progress in actual use and take up by public, that is clearly slow. In terms of the 12 monthly figures for the Contact Centre there has been an increase in people using the Welsh language to communicate with us.”

Wrexham.com asked Cllr Jones over the costs of implementation, he said: “We need to make the Welsh Government aware that the standards imposed were not funded, and we were not given extra funding at a time when we were taking £26-30 million out of our budget.”

“Not withstanding that what we have done is worked hard to implement standards as cost effectively as possible. We have been able to implement standards at a lower cost than first anticipated.”

“Are these standards the right way to achieve the objectives for the Welsh language? Are they encouraging and promoting the use of the Welsh language in the most effective way, is it a stick rather than a carrot?

“I believe we need to encourage and enthuse people, and not see as something that is tied up and bound in legal niceties.”

The report also contains two elements of the complaints log, and resolutions with eight being investigated by the Welsh Language Commissioner

There are some meat on the bone style stats, with details of the visits to the council website homepage being included with an English / Welsh split.

During 2015/16: English visitors 307,912 Welsh visitors 5,236 i.e. 1.7% in Welsh.
During 2016/17: English visitors 291,423 Welsh visitors 4,726 Which equates to 1.6% in Welsh

Council website transactions are also logged with similar splits:

During 2015/16 there were: English: 774,956 Welsh: 7,042 i.e.1% in Welsh
During 2016/17 there were: 890,565 in English and; 8,666 in Welsh i.e. 1% in Welsh

Contact centre stats are also included covering ‘calls/visits’:

During 2015/16 Contact Wrexham received 237,447 calls/visits in English; and 215 in Welsh I.e. 0.090%. in Welsh
During 2016/17 the Contact Centre received: 262,191 calls/visits in English; and 1307 in Welsh i.e. 0.5% in Welsh

The full report can be found here. Members of the Executive Board will discuss the reports findings at a meeting at 10am on Tuesday 20th June. For those who can’t attend the meeting it will be webcast live on the Wrexham Council website.