Council Publishes Annual Report on the Welsh Language

Carmarthenshire County Council has published its Annual Report on the Welsh Language, for the year 2022-23.

This is the seventh year since implementation of the Welsh Language Standards and despite fiscal challenges faced by the public sector, we have been able to continue to maintain high standards in the provision of services to our residents in Welsh. The Council is proud of its ongoing efforts to promote and facilitate the Welsh language internally, in various policy areas and under the responsibilities of our Promotion Standards.

Following the Local Elections, the Welsh Language Advisory Panel was re-established, and this cross-party Panel met twice, in the Autumn and in March. There was an opportunity in March to receive a submission from the Welsh Government on the 2021 Census data and to ponder the difficult realities and challenges in front of the Council following the disappointing results for Carmarthenshire.

They also set up monthly meetings between the Council Leader, the Cabinet Member for Education and Welsh Language, the Cabinet Member for Rural Affairs, the Head of ICT Service and Corporate Policy and the Policy, Performance and Partnership Manager to further discuss the reduction in Welsh speakers in Carmarthenshire and have met with a range of shareholders to discuss and plan the next steps.

Cabinet Member for Education and Welsh Language, Cllr Glynog Davies said “I am delighted to present Carmarthenshire County Council’s Welsh Language Annual Report for 2022/23.

“Over the past year, our interpreters have been extremely busy with extensive use of Welsh on the chamber floor and online. The hybrid meetings were added to the pipeline this year and simultaneous translation has been successfully integrated into this platform as well.

The Council is proud of the proactive and effective manner in which it has managed to encourage the use of Welsh at meetings, adapting to all the different platforms, and the tireless work of the Translation Unit and IT Division is commendable. We demonstrated high standards, as always, in terms of all our marketing and our communications were delivered in accordance with the Standards flawlessly, including the messages across our social media platforms.

“It has been a very busy year in terms of Welsh language promotion, with all the work of reporting on the first five year period of the Promotion Strategy, and formulating the new Strategy. Tremendous work has been done coordinating partners’ input and co-planning through the Welsh County Strategic Forum which the Council also leads.

“The Council also designated funding to welcome the Urdd Eisteddfod to Carmarthenshire. Despite the fiscal challenges, it was felt to be an important investment to promote the Welsh language, and to maintain great opportunities for our young people to use Welsh, and to raise the status of Welsh as a living language in the County. Every opportunity was used to promote the event in the county and to ensure that as many of our young people as possible were involved in the activities. A number of Council departments collaborated with Forum bodies to support schools to compete in the Eisteddfod, focusing on those who do not normally compete. The response has been overwhelmingly positive with the County’s English language primary and secondary schools owning the opportunity to take pride in and use Welsh.

“I am also pleased to note two other specific projects included in the Annual Report, namely the efforts to promote the Welsh language in our significant economic plans, and the commencement of the work of increasing administration through the medium of Welsh. Both of these projects emphasise our ambition, as a Council, to promote the use of Welsh in all our work.