The first rights to receive services in Welsh won’t be operational until next year - 5 months later than planned - following a severe reaction to the Welsh Government’s draft regulations.
In a statement today, the First Minister said: “The Welsh Government has decided to follow the Commissioner’s advice and conduct a four week consultation on the draft Regulations to make standards under section 26 of the Measure … By conducting the consultation in November 2014, we will be in a position to lay the standards before the Assembly in February 2015.” The Government’s original intention was to pass the language standards - language duties which will replace language schemes - in November this year.
Hundreds of Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg members responded to the consultation at the start of the year on the draft duties. They called on the Government to stick to its promises to: ensure the standards create clear language rights for people; not to let bodies offer fewer services than that offered under current Welsh language schemes; enable more bodies to operate internally through the medium of Welsh; and ensure services contracted out are provided in the language.
Chair of Cymdeithas Robin Farrar said: “Although it’s not ideal the Government is causing further delay to the language standards, it’s encouraging they’re willing to listen to language groups who’ve called for fundamental changes to the standards. We expect Carwyn Jones to keep to his word and listen to people, and implement the changes to address the fundamental weaknesses in his draft standards. Hundreds of our members have been pressing the Government to ensure that people have clear rights, rather than regulations that just make things easy for public organisations and private companies.
“The draft standards in their current form break a number promises made by the First Minister given that they allow organisations to offer worse services than commitments already made on paper in Welsh language schemes, and let services that are contracted out be in English only. Also, a number of organisations want to move to a situation where they work internally through the medium of Welsh, including Carmarthenshire County Council, but the standards don’t offer a way to support that intention. Indeed, there’s not a single standard to ensure that organisations employ staff with language skills in order to provide the service in Welsh.”
In an event at the National Eisteddfod in Llanelli (2:30pm Tuesday, August 5th), Cymdeithas will challenge the Government to improve the language standards.