Skip to main content

The BDA's BSL Audit: what should do the Welsh Government do next?

Wales
The British Deaf Association (BDA) published its audit of the Welsh Government's policies and approaches against the five commitments of their BSL Charter on 14 February 2023.

The BDA recommends the following:
  • A BSL Act in Wales giving sign language communities and Deaf people full citizenship in cultural, social and political contexts;
  • Restructure Deaf education with a national BSL plan;
  • Ensure hearing people and families of Deaf children can learn BSL;
  • Put BSL/English interpreting on a statutory footing;
  • To establish a BSL working group; 
  • Collect statistics relating to the socio-economic situation of BSL users; and
  • Create a Facebook group to gather evidence from the Deaf community.
The ball is now in the Welsh Government's court. Progress has already been made with the appointment of a Disability and BSL Policy Manager in Government, who is tasked with implementing the BDA's recommendations.

In terms of next steps, while the Government has made clear that the Disability Rights Taskforce, particularly its Access to Services Working Group, will consider the BDA's report, more is required.  Following the BDA's recommendation for a BSL working group to be established, I suggest that a steering group is set up consisting of Welsh Deaf BSL users, with invited representative of the Deaf community across Wales, with representation of the north, south, west and east.

The purpose of the steering group would be to work out a way forward to implement the BDA’s recommendations on behalf of the Welsh Government. At the first meeting, a chair should be appointed.  The steering group could produce a plan which could include the establishment of a BSL council or committee (or similar) which will oversee the implementation of the recommendations. 

If such a council or committee is set up, a chair would again need to be appointed, which could be a similar arrangement to that of the BSL Advisory Board in England, whereby Craig Crowley is to be co-chair with a senior civil servant.  The steering group could transition into the BSL council, or perhaps the Welsh Government would prefer to appoint council members by way of an application process, similar to the BSL Advisory Board recruitment process under the BSL Act 2022.

The remit of the BSL council would be the three main themes of the BDA's audit report: Full Citizenship, Education and Interpreters and Translators (see Figure 1), and a working group could be set up for each theme.  At that level, representatives from the sector could be required to work out an action plan with and on behalf of the BSL council on how to implement the BDA's recommendations under that particular theme. Members of the BSL council could volunteer to become chair of each working group.


The Welsh Government would need to commit funds for the steering group, BSL council and working groups to cover the cost of BSL/English Interpreters, administrative support and translations into BSL, English and Welsh as needed.  A website on the gov.wales website would also be needed to act as a focal point of the BSL council's work and be a central resource.

The BSL could work out a reporting process for each working group for progress reports etc. which can also be published on the gov.wales website.

It remains to be seen what the Welsh Government decides to do.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog.   It has been some time since I blogged, but as an academic it is obviously important that I write as much as possible.  While the focus will be on academic pieces of work such as journal articles, book chapters, a monograph or manuscripts, the general consensus within the academic community is that any writing is good, and this blog is a way for me to: keep writing/putting my thoughts into something more concrete, to disseminate ideas in the hope that I will receive feedback via the comments, and in the process updating visitors to my website on my current research projects and initiatives. Check back regularly for updates, and if you would like to make any suggestions or work with me, please get in touch on email WilksR2@cardiff.ac.uk , via Twitter ( @rwilks ), or LinkedIN .

Deaf legal theory

The DLT Method Deaf legal theory is a somewhat new concept in legal jurisprudence. It was coined by Bryan and Emery in a chapter in Deaf Gain: Raising the Stakes for Human Diversity , published in 2014. I first came across this theory when working on my PhD thesis , and although it only had a minor mention in the end, I had the pleasure of teaching legal jurisprudence at the University of South Wales in 2014 and 2016, and was resolved to delve into deaf legal theory in more detail at some point in the future. Fast forward to 2022, after moving to Cardiff University, the time was ripe to start delving. I created a Developing Deaf Legal Theory blog and started writing blog posts, and lo and behold within two months was invited to give a talk at the University of Birmingham’s Language and Law seminar series about deaf legal theory. I have subsequently been asked to write three entries on deaf legal theory plus case studies for a forthcoming Encyclopaedia of Language and Law. The dea