The Equality and Engagement Officer gave a report, that updated the Cabinet Committee Equalities with information regarding progress being made with the development of the Council’s draft Welsh Language Standards Implementation Plan.

He confirmed that the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 replaces Welsh Language Schemes with a set of enforceable national ‘standards’ which will impact upon the work of the whole Council. A number of these standards related to the development of a Corporate Implementation Plan/Strategy.

In support of the report, the Equality and Engagement Officer gave a short powerpoint Presentation entitled ‘Welsh Language Measure and BCBC Implementation Plan’ that covered the following themes:-

Welsh Language Standards

·         Approved by Welsh Assembly Government in March 2015

·         Draft Compliance Notice issued in June 2015

·         Consultation on content of Draft Compliance Notice closed 20 July 2015

·         Final Compliance Notice issued in September 2015

The Equality and Engagement Officer added that the approved Standards were the 2^nd iteration, the first being discarded by WAG. He further added that BCBC responded to the first consultation/investigation in April 2014.

He confirmed that the 5 main themes of the Welsh Language Standards were:-

1.    Service Delivery

2.    Policy Making

3.    Operational Issues

4.    Promoting the Standards

5.    Record Keeping

Compliance and Timeframe

With regard to the above, the Equality and Engagement Officer stated that the proposed timescales were to comply with:

(i)            148 Standards by March 2016

(ii)           21 Standards by September 2016

In respect of the draft Implementation Plan, he added that this had been populated with some example data and information relevant to the Resources Directorate intitially, which would then look to be rolled out to other Directorates. The approach to the development of the Implementation Plan was to:

·         Adopt a “SMART” approach to outlining each of the standards

·         Describing the impact of each of the standards on individual service units

·         To also describe the work required to comply with the standard and the resources required to do so, and

·         The lead Officer responsible for overseeing standards compliance within each service area.

A Member enquired as to what were the feelings of neighbouring authorities on having to comply with the Standards.

The Equality and Engagement Officer advised that in South East Wales, other Authorities were sceptical about obtaining full or even part compliance with the Standards, due to the resources required to meet these.. He added that it was not so financially daunting for other Authorities, such as Wrexham, Flint and Gwynedd, as they already had a number of Standards naturally in place as they were largely welsh speaking communities.

The Deputy Leader stated that the Standards needed to be challenged, allbeit in a constructive way. As discussed earlier in the meeting, he felt that some discussion was required with Welsh Government, to endeavour to meet some of the Standards that were reasonable or minimal in terms of cost that would be incurred by the Authority. Those that had more of a cost implication needed to be negotiated with Welsh Government, as a compromise situation needed to be arrived at. He added that BCBC were consensus cross party, that it was too difficult from a financial perspective to be able to deliver all of the required Standards.

The Chairperson added that the Council should also contact the WLGA as there was a common voice across south east and to a degree south west Wales, over the Standards being unachievable due to the huge financial cost of these during a time when local authorities have limited resources.

RESOLVED:                            That the Cabinet Equalities Committee both received and considered the report and accompanying Presentation