Commissioner says more councils should use Welsh in administration

More local authorities need to follow the lead of Gwynedd and introduce Welsh as their main administrative language as part of the Government’s aim of a million Welsh speakers by 2050.
That’s the view of the Welsh language commissioner who, addressing Gwynedd’s language committee on Thursday, praised their efforts in maintaining a bilingual presence with dealing with the public but using only Welsh  in most circumstances on an internal basis.

Aled Roberts, a former AM who was appointed to the post last year, went on to describe the strength of the language in Gwynedd as a “mixed picture” however, acknowledging the need to ensure that Welsh was spoken by more people on a day to day basis.
According to the last census. 72.91% of the county’s residents had at least some Welsh skills.
“What you have done as a council, in terms of your internal administration, is encouraging and there’s room for us to spread such good practices across Wales,” he said.
“When devolution was introduced in 1999 we had only one local authority that administered through the medium of Welsh, but sadly that remains the case.
“I want to praise you for what you do and there is also room to adopt your education policies elsewhere, but I do feel there’s a need for an honest discussion across Wales in regards to current weaknesses too.”
The commissioner noted his intention to meet up with officers on Anglesey next month for un update on their efforts to follow suit, with the housing and leisure services currently undergoing such a transformation.
He added, however, that other western counties of Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire were still discussing such measures at this stage.
The former Liberal Democrat AM went on to acknowledge that the strength of the language was not uniform, even in Gwynedd, noting that schools in parts of south Meirionnydd, Dolgellau and Bangor all faced their own issues in terms of language promotion.
The commissioner suggested a need to “look again” at the categorisation of the language in schools, adding: “By the time children arrive secondary school, many children from non-Welsh speaking homes are fluent, which shows the strength of the policy in terms of primary education.
“But questions, perhaps, need to be asked in terms of language transfer within the home. We have to hold a frank discussion on what’s going on across Wales, and what we are doing to ensure that children don’t get the impression that Welsh is only important in the classroom,” added Mr Roberts.
“We can’t depend only on strong headteachers that are personally committed to the language.”
He concluded: “A secondary target which, in my view is more important (than the 1m figure), which is to increase the percentage using the language on a daily basis from 10% to 20% by 2020.
“That’s the biggest contribution you can make as a council, if you hold your ground as there are more opportunities to use Welsh every day in Gwynedd than other parts of Wales.
“In Ireland, Irish is the official language, but the danger is that while Welsh also has an official status it does not mean that the battle is won.
“The battle will be won in our homes and workplaces not necessary via status.
“There are 1.6m people in Ireland who say they can speak Irish, which is a similar figure to our 1m target, but only 56,000 use Irish every day and leaving over 1.7m make no use of their language at all.
“While I am optimistic and see some hope every day, there is much more work that needs to be done in terms of promoting the language.”

By Gareth Williams – Local Democracy Reporter