 wrth gyflawniaeth y Welch galwc, wrth gyflawniaeth o'r llyfrfynu oesaf, mae'n mynd i Hydfodolol Llyfrgellau Genedlaethau i ddweud. Mae hynny yn gweithio i ddweud yn gwneud. Mae'n guided leysgrif yn llawer y Llyfrgellau во perlwniau. Mae'n gweld ei ddweud mor hyn yn cyflawnu gweld y Llyfrgellau, mae'n gyfrif yn ei hwn yn ymgylchedd, ac mae'n gweld yn gweithio am gyffredinol, mae'n gweld i ddweud, ac mae'n gweld i ddweud. The BSL, as you have become very well aware, is a language. The British Deaf Association published this dictionary many years ago, providing definitive evidence that it is a full language that needs to be recognised and accepted as a language alongside the other languages of Scotland. As it being a language it is part of our everyday lives and it needs to be part of mae'r fawr a'r fod yn eistedd gyda'r ysgol, mae'r cyfrifio'r ddigon이ol amgylchidol a'r ddigon y Daun i blwyddon i'r ddweud gyfan hyd yn oedd credu'r gwaith eich gwaith i'r cyfrifio a'r ddigon i'r ddigon i'r cyfrifio a'r ddigon i'r gwaith eich gwaith 없 yma. Mae'n ei fawr i chi edrych tyfn i'r gyrhau dech 점fennol. Mae'n eistedd gyda'r cefnol i'r ddigon i'r diem i hynny frydy blending. However, the bill stops short of second clear rights for BSL users or duties on public authorities. Do you think that that is a limitation to the bill? Many people have said in their responses to the committee that they see the bill as a stepping stone. Do you feel that? Do you think that that is enough at the moment with this bill? Realistically, we would love to have more. I think that we are all agreed on that. We have had years of problems, but we would like to grab the opportunity that has been presented to us. I think that it is a first step. It is a lot better than what we have at present. I know that there are authorities who are quite concerned and anxious about this. I think that this would be a really good first step to get something on the statute books—a good useful first step. We can look at the bill as something that opens the door, if you like, for deaf people and our language. Like Frankie said, it is a very first step. This is a pioneering piece of legislation in terms of the United Kingdom, so we welcome it with open arms. We are ready to roll up our sleeves and do the hard work. To build on the national plan, as it stated or statements of intent have already been mentioned, so that the authorities can clear plans about work plans and what is going to work for us. We are prepared to wait for quality. We are—I think that that is important. The community has a very positive attitude to this, and we do want to move forward. I agree with what Avril and Frankie have just said. It is really important. It will be an important step to the improvement of services, and it will be gradual. Things will build from that. Other organisations may become involved. Hopefully businesses will follow suit. It is the 21st century. It is time for us to move forward. I agree. What is going to be important is that the national plan has a very clear vision and can be linked to outcomes. That is going to be vital. The scene is set by the national plan. We have the right mechanisms in place in relation to monitoring and reviewing those local plans. Importantly, the national plan sets out a really clear vision to help us to achieve what we need to with the bill. I agree very much a stepping stone and I am very welcomed by all of us. If you would like to play devil's advocate, which is one of my favourite things to do. Is the bill anything more than symbolic in its nature? Effectively, it does not provide any more resources, it does not change anything particularly, it does not provide any more interpreters or translators. Is it nothing more than a symbol? I think in terms of interpreting, it will hopefully enhance the need for quality interpreters and more interpreters. Universities and colleges need to make sure that their services are accessible. I think that is right. I think that it could be symbolic, but I think that it is a powerful symbol and that is why we are all here. We are here. We are using BSL face to face with you. You had many contributions to your Facebook page and that is evidence that it is a powerful symbol. When you say that it is merely symbolic, what it offers is perhaps a framework, a skeleton on which we can then put the flesh on and develop as time goes on. The national plan will hopefully cascade down to those local authorities, but you have to have a framework, you have to have a structure within to put those ideals, aspirations and eventually service expectations. The fact that it is about our language and the recognition of our language is the focus of it rather than our disability or linguistic rights. I would say that that is a pretty good symbolic start. Can I ask one further follow-up question before I bring in the next member of the committee? Franky mentioned at the start about the Equality Act 2010. You seem to be suggesting that that was not sufficient to meet the kind of objectives that you are hoping that the BSL bill will meet. Can you maybe expand on that a little bit why the Equality Act is insufficient to meet the objectives that you hope that the BSL bill will? I have a social work background and a personal experience as well, and I see horror stories every day occurring with deaf people, people who are going into hospital, who are waiting for hours or months even without really knowing what is going on in terms of their treatment, people who have problems accessing college courses and who withdraw from college education because there is no provision for them, people who think that the experiences that you take for granted on an everyday basis are problematic for deaf people. Some deaf people, for example, have got into debt because of lack of understanding of some of the information that has been sent to them in written English. They see letters in English, they ignore them because they do not understand them, they then get into debt, their situations become more and more problematic, they end up in crisis before any help is asked for. Because of data protection, it is very hard for them to interact with financial services and institutions through a third party, like through an interpreter or through another representative who wants to act on their behalf, and the Equality Act is not dealing with this. People and organisations find ways of working around the Equality Act. Also, the Equality Act talks about reasonable adjustment, and it is very hard to define what that means. A lot of organisations will say that those adjustments that might be reasonable for deaf people are too expensive, particularly when it comes to language issues. The adjustments that deaf people need are deemed not reasonable, and this is a loophole in that legislation. If I want to go to a solicitor, who has to pay for the interpreter? I do. Legal aid will not cover the cost of the first appointment, but not the interpreting costs. If I want to buy a house, I need to interact with a lawyer. Legal aid does not cover that. What do I do when I want to buy a house, for example? Those are just some very quick examples. I could go on for hours and give you some real horror stories of experiences that deaf people have had. Before I bring in Nicola and Avril, I want to pursue this for one second. I know that we will get into some of the detail of this in a moment, but you gave a number of examples about people getting into debt or trying to buy a house, for example, and how the Qualities Act does not in any way help with any of those day-to-day situations. However, how do you believe that the BSL bill will help with those everyday situations? In what way will the BSL bill prevent somebody from getting into debt? Awareness of the language needs of deaf people and to make sure that information is accessible in that language. The recognition that BSL is a language is because people really do not understand what BSL is all about. They maybe do not think of it and consider it as a proper language. It is just people waving their hands around. They do not consider linguistic issues when they think about BSL. Having this legislation would identify it as a language and recognise that the issues for BSL users are to do with language and linguistic access, and also to celebrate the richness of that language. At the moment, people, organisations, can ignore that. I think that we want to access life through using our own language. I think that legislation that encourages a change of attitude towards the language and identifies it as a language is necessary. I just like to agree with what Frankie says through my personal experience. I am going to the bank and sitting down with a financial adviser in dealing with transactions to do with my house. I had similar problems just accessing the fundamental information. People were saying that they needed to come back in two weeks. That is when we can do something. I need access to that information right now. I often felt that there were a lot of barriers and it was very difficult for me in those areas of my life. Similarly, visiting the tax office website and trying to deal with written language informing people of my own language needs, that lack of awareness, the lack of fundamental awareness, means that you just often give up. Deaf people end up having to go and do things face-to-face, taking more time and not having real equality of access. Frankie says that that attitude and cultural shift that is brought about by a promotional bill may well help. When you talk about the Equality Act, you say that it does work for some people, but it clearly is not working for the sign language using deaf community. Frankie mentioned reasonable adjustment earlier on. That whereby services can provide—you just write things down on a bit of paper rather than providing an interpreter, which resorts back to English, which does not give us the full access via our preferred language. A bill like this can state that provision of services in BSL is something that deaf people should have. We have talked about reasonable adjustment, not working. The British Deaf Association in 2014 carried out a wide-ranging survey into the legal status of British Sign Language and ISL, and the clear results and the proof is that the Equality Act is not working for sign language using deaf people. If you look at page 7 of the report, in the last paragraph, we talked about the very important area of education for deaf children. When you ask MSPs and MPs whether deaf children will receive their education in sign language, the overwhelming response is, well, of course, that is the case. However, in 2009, the Grimes report said that something quite contrary—eight per cent of teachers of the deaf can sign eight per cent, but that means 92 per cent can't. How are those children accessing their education? How are they setting up the foundations for their wellbeing in their future? We need an act that states that children should be educated in the language and culture that they belong to, giving them full access to information. We need a separate act that has British Sign Language in its title. That might well lead to future access and future provision for the deaf community. I want to bring in some of the committee now, because I know that there are a number of questions that members have. Can I start with Colin? Some organisations have expressed concern that the bill uses up scarce resources. If I can quote from COSLA, they state that there is a risk that it will become simply an inexpensive bureaucratic exercise. If they had a choice, would they be spending their resources on developing plans, or would they rather have the resources spent in another way more effectively supporting BSL users? It is just a very open question. When we are talking about spending, we need to think about—at the moment—the Government is spending an awful lot on deaf people. Most deaf people do not work. They try to find work, but they do not. They are on benefits, so they are not actively contributing to our economy. They are excluded from that. An investment now, as a result of this bill, will save money in the long term in terms of services to deaf people. If people are able to interact and contribute to the economy more, then there will be other costs that will be saved later on. For example, mental health and education. If we do not do anything now, there will be increased costs later on as a result. However, if we invest in trying to ensure that deaf people are active members of society and are able to share their experiences and knowledge with other members of society, then we will all benefit. The bill is timely. It comes alongside the national sensory impairment strategy. It comes at a time when we have a focus on the attainment gap for deaf learners. As Frankie says, it is a stepping stone. It allows us to have a focus on children and young people and on a whole range of issues for deaf people in Scotland that will help to support better outcomes for people and an investment in the future. The timing of the bill is very good in relation to other areas of focus, but in particular the focus that we now have on the attainment gap that exists for deaf children and on some of the issues that have been raised in the recent CRIDE survey that has been picked up on earlier about qualifications for teachers of the deaf and the consistency of support for deaf learners in Scotland. That issue is about timing and the plans are absolutely right in terms of the kind of issues that they are capturing and a real focus on improving the outcomes for deaf children and, ultimately, for deaf adults. That is awesome, the expenditure as you have. As has been said, this could be a strategic investment for the long term to save public money. If we give deaf people the quality start in life, then they will, like Frankie said, contribute. There is a lot of misdirected and unstrategic spending on the deaf community that is going on at the moment. What we would like to see is a cross-department, cross-party joint working together so that we target and strategise, because we see an awful lot of duplication and repetition of services. For example, across the NHS and the other public services, with the advancement of technology and the increasing of online services, this is not done in a centralised way that could easily work in Scotland where we join the dots between those services so that we have a full, comprehensive, cohesive picture, giving us value for our money for each pound that we spend. I agree wholeheartedly with Frankie that an investment now will make all of us, not the deaf community but the whole of Scotland, better off in the future. The point that Arwell made in relation to the current spending for BSL. Arwell seemed to be indicating that it was not being spent perhaps as wisely as it should be. Perhaps you could add a little bit to that. Okay. For example, with the NHS services across Scotland, they very much have their own individual localised plans of how they will meet deaf people's needs. If they joined up, for example, with the interpreting services on the access via technology, if it was done in a centralised way, rather than all the pots of money being drained locally, if we planned those things properly in the first place, I am sure that you would agree with me that we would have an economy of scale. It would just make sense. Does that answer your question? The number of BSL users in different areas varies widely. In some areas, there will be a large number of deaf people and others will be very few and far between. Having a centralised system will be far more cost effective, I am sure. It has occurred to me that another example that might illustrate is that when you look at deaf children in schools across Scotland, there is an awful lot of expenditure on itinerant and visiting teachers of the deaf that can't sign very well, as I have already said. The communication support workers are not trained very well and are giving ineffectual support. If we strategically employed deaf people to support our deaf students, it would be a lot cheaper and cost-effective and would give much better outcomes, which is far more important. As I explained earlier, a lot of the so-called professionals working in this area do not have the sign language skills necessary to meet the needs of the deaf students. We are able to exploit the potential of the deaf community and our skills and experiences to bring up our children in the way that they deserve. Can I ask Alan, given that he is representing here younger people today, if he has a view on this? Young deaf people often live very isolated lives in terms of their family, their social life, their education. They find it difficult to get good employment outcomes that are underemployed. They cannot get promotion. I cannot emphasise many areas of improvement. For example, job interviews can be incredibly difficult for deaf people to navigate very well, but employers and educational establishments have an attitude that is extremely unhelpful to deaf people's needs. A bill such as this that states the language rights of deaf people will go a long way to improving that. In the panel, what they understand by the term promotion of BSL. What specific things should that entail? What should be included in that promotion? Yes, Alan. When you look at promotion of BSL, what it means to me is—well, first of all, it has been said earlier that it proves that it is a language, so education establishments and employers hopefully will have an attitudinal shift. I think that is a cultural shift. I think that is the first key step. Promotion can also mean much more of an acceptance of the access needs of deaf people throughout our society. My experience is not only deaf people who might benefit, but hearing people too. Hearing people are usually fascinated when they are exposed to BSL and very keen to learn more, but they have a limited choice in where they can go and learn that, and often they are disappointed because things are not accessible in their locality. I think that the potential for having BSL on the curriculum, for example, would improve the awareness of hearing people. It would improve their language skills. They could become bilingual as well in English and BSL. That would mean that there would be far more interaction between deaf and hearing people. It would be really useful. It could be fun for hearing people. It would involve a lot more interaction and involvement in the wider society for deaf people. Promotion of BSL would certainly involve promoting the learning of it with hearing people. I have already said that, a couple of decades ago, the dictionary recognised our language as having its own grammar, syntax and structure, putting it on an absolute equal footing with any other language. I think that we have all agreed that this is a recognised language. It is not just gestures or mimes. For me, promotion means—well, Frankie has already mentioned a national curriculum, but it would be terrific to recognise the benefits that sign language can confer. For somebody to grow up bilingual, their career opportunities are not only in that language, of course they could work as a social worker or an interpreter within the language group. We would have the cost-effectiveness of that, but bilingualism is good anyway. Deaf people have partners and family members. I do not know if you know that 95 per cent plus deaf children are born to hearing families. If we promote this language within the wider community, when people have deaf children, they will be able to communicate at least fundamentally with them. The quality of life that it would promote is what I think of when I think of promotion. We keep going back to this, but changing attitudes, gaining acceptance and respecting our language on a par with other spoken languages are an important principle. It means that deaf Scottish people will feel that they truly belong in their own country. I am very brief, because we have a lot to get through, Heather. I mentioned the academy in the one plus two initiative there, where students are learning BSL as a second language and perhaps that being an opportunity, certainly a great example of good practice. Thank you very much. A number of comments suggested that there could be some unintended consequences of the bill. Primarily, it could have a detrimental effect on the available resources to support people with other communication needs. Would you agree with that? Could other communication needs for deaf people be negatively affected by the BSL bill? If so, in what ways? At the moment, BSL should be an option for anyone who chooses to use it, but it is really not an option because of lack of resources, lack of support and so on. BSL is often an option for families with deaf children that they do not take up. As Avril said, the vast majority of deaf children are born into hearing families, hearing families who do not know how to communicate with their child, who do not know where to go and learn BSL and may be not advised to do that. Deafness covers a broad range of individuals who will communicate in different ways. Not all will use sign language, some will lip-read and speak, for example. That is fine. I am thinking about how many of those would welcome the opportunity to learn BSL if it was available to them. I am confident that a lot more people would access BSL tuition if they were able to do so. Hearing loss can have a profound effect on the lives of individuals, can really impact on their ability to communicate and so on, can cause a great deal of frustration and often depression. Often, single parents, for example, who lose their hearing, will have hugely problematic issues communicating with their children. It can involve a lot of stress. People can really struggle in their individual circumstances. Having BSL as an option that is accessible for more people to learn would benefit a lot of hard-of-hearing people as well. It would give them another choice that could help them to access services and life. It could be very positive for other people. Can I answer up for a second? Mr Donan's question was not so much about the response that Mr McLean just gave and the benefits. Many of us recognise the benefits if it was widely available. The question is directly about the impact on resources. If the resource allocation for the deaf community within a council or other communication needs is limited—if it is a fixed part of money—what would the impact be on that part of money if some of it had to be used because of legislation, for example, for the plans and the promotion, et cetera? I am not confident at the moment that extra money would be provided to do this, that the money would remain the same, but some of the money would then have to be allocated for promotion, et cetera. What would the impact be on BSL users then? I am paraphrasing the question. I was going to come back in and make exactly the point that you have made, convener. I do not know whether Frankie will maybe respond directly to that point. Sorry, I was emphasising the positives. I know that there are concerns about this. The honest answer is that we do not know, but when I consider the spending that is happening at the moment in relation to deaf people, I think that there would be a lot of savings. For example, there is not much spending on lip-reading classes at the moment, so the spending is the other way around. There is more spending on BSL users than there are on the other groups of deaf people. Sorry, I am interpreting the mistake. Frankie's last point was that he believes that the current suite of services that are available—if you look at it right now—is much more spending on the other forms of communication than BSL. That is the status quo at the moment. At the moment, other communication methods are not totally sure what the spending is on them, but I do not think that there is much spending on them anyway. I would like to say that a BSL bill would make the BSL needs more visible, because I feel that they are not visible enough within that spectrum of needs and services to meet those needs. I do not think that there would be any negative effects at all, to be honest. I think that what we have to bear in mind is that BSL is a language. All the other communication needs that you are talking about are in sign-supported English, but that is not a language. It is an artificial communication system. Macaton is available, but I do not know whether you are aware of that. That is for people who have special needs on top of additional disabilities. There should not really be any negative unintended effects. If we consider the amount of funding that has been given to coquel implantation over the last few decades, if we can spend money in that direction, we can certainly, via a bill, point people and direct them to spending in this way. There should not be any negative effects at all. We are talking about a language issue here, as distinct from—I mean, the other services are for people who do not use that language, so I think that there are two separate issues. It would be good for us to focus on the language side of things. We talked about the sea here strategy and what is going ahead. We are obviously very supportive of having a very wide and open attitude to the spectrum of deafness and the services, but I have a very strong belief that a BSL bill would have no negative unintended consequences. I will say that we are, as an organisation, seeing quite significant cuts in sensory services right across Scotland. We need to be aware that there is some potential for financial resources to be diverted away from additional support, for example, for deaf children in the classroom, particularly around communication support workers, radio aids and improved acoustics. I do think that seeing the situation right across Scotland just now and seeing the constraints and budgets that we need to be cautious about that. Come back to you then on that, Heather. Have you got any suggestions about how we can mitigate those circumstances? Some funding attached to the bill. I do believe that the bill will require funding and resourcing, given the fact that we know that there are inconsistencies across Scotland and that there are gaps in services just now. Services are working incredibly hard to build capacity and to use resources as effectively as possible, but we are seeing significant cuts to budgets and real pressures on councils just now. My concern would be that, unless there are financial resources attached to the bill, it may well be difficult to fulfil the obligation. Do you think that the bill should include specific references to the needs of deaf-blind BSL users and deaf soul in what way? It should, because deaf-blind people are deaf primarily and then they will lose their vision later in life. They are people who rely on BSL. At the moment, deaf-blind communication might involve a hands-on tactile form of BSL. That is BSL anyway, so basically what we are talking about is BSL. It is just a different form of BSL. I am not a linguistic academic, so maybe other people can tell me if I am wrong there. Like Frankie said, deaf-blind people are a distinct group within our community and have their own extra needs. What is important is to make sure that they are included. If we are talking about including the deaf community within the wider society, we also need to consider how the deaf-blind minority within the deaf community is part of that picture. Obviously, as the bill stands just now, there is a proposal that there should be one minister who has a specific responsibility for BSL. The Scottish Government has come back and said that all ministers should have responsibility because of the collective role that their portfolios have. Do you feel that there should be a specific minister with responsibility, and if so, what additional benefit could that bring? What we would like to see is a minister being given primary responsibility to oversee that whole picture to take the lead on British Sign Language flowing from an act of Parliament. We would like to have our cake and eat it. I suppose that we would like to cross department and cross party support for this so that there is a synergy between the head and the heart and the actual services that are provided. We would like a strong overview and leadership so that somebody is accountable for it, but they would then delegate those responsibilities across all departments. That would benefit all parts of that equation because there would be a clear road map, a clear strategy of who is responsible for what, but that oversight that we feel is a very important aspect would also be cost effective. Do not forget that we are talking, hopefully, about having a national advisory group that would work in very strong co-operation with all Government departments to ensure that we take the right path in ensuring a better future. I am sure that you have been looking in-depth at all the paperwork in relation to this bill. You probably have a much more in-depth knowledge about it than other ministers here. I think that it would be really invaluable to have somebody who has a cruise, an in-depth knowledge about BSL and about the processes and the needs involved. Follow-up on this point, because if there is a national advisory body and there is also a minister with responsibility, could you be clear about what each of the roles would be? How would the minister's role differ from that of the national advisory group? I think that there are a lot of issues that need to be discussed and that the advisory group would be the place for those discussions to take place, to benefit from individuals' experiences and so on. However, the minister is the person who needs to take that overview, summarise the thoughts of the advisory group, present them to Parliament, the advisory group is where the discussions can happen and feed into the process, and that will be done through the minister. Just be clear about that answer. If it is the responsibility of the minister to set the priorities, would it be your expectation that those priorities come from the national advisory body? Yes, I think so. What I would like to stress—we have talked about the minister taking the lead in terms of Parliament and legislation—the advisory group, what we would like to see is that group represented in a majority, 75 per cent or more, of experts in the field who have a connection with the community with what is going on. We provide the link between the plans, the bridge, if you like, between what the plans feed into and what is the strategy from the actual needs of the community. If you ensure that there is that 75 per cent or vast majority of Scottish deaf BSL users in that group, organisations such as COSLA and the others need to be part of those lengthy discussions. If you look at formulating a national plan and supporting authorities to do that plan, members of that group could provide that vital link between the national Parliament and all those services that are being rolled out across the country. I hope that that is clear, is it? Can I just finish on the point? There must be an expectation on other portfolios in government that this has an impact, whether it runs across education, it runs across health, it runs across social responsibility. I am slightly nervous about one minister having that responsibility. I think that that is the point that the Scottish Government is making. Would you see any way forward of trying to ensure that there is a collective responsibility on this? I am not sure that I am really going to answer that. If we look at the Gaelic model and consider whether or how effective that is in relation to that, there may be—either if it is effective—follow the same model and if it is not, do something different. Just think to what Frankie just said. If we spread the responsibility around, then it spread perhaps too thin. We would like to see some sort of accountability, a shared responsibility, if you like. There is one minister who takes the lead, because it is a promotional bill, and they take the lead over the other departments, but the advisory group provides that vital link to local authorities and services. Like Frankie said, we can look at the spoken language models and see if they will apply and if they will work to the British Sign Language situation. I ask about a particular issue that was raised in effect by the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government suggested that the requirement for the list of authorities to publish a plan should be replaced with the requirement to publish a BSL statement. I wondered whether the panel felt that a statement would be a better way of driving improvement and measuring progress than a plan. I think that it is important that it is plans and that those plans have momentum and that there is accountability for those plans and that we can see progress towards the bill. I think that there is a bit of a fear if it is a statement that it could be a tick box exercise. I think that it is important that it is plans and that there are accountabilities around that, and that there are measurable outcomes in terms of the progress to achieving the aspirations of the bill. The Government's view in terms of the bill at the moment, as it has laid out, was that there should be a national plan and that each authority plan, if you like, would be a statement. The statement would be how they would achieve the outcomes as laid out in the national plan and how they would drive forward their responsibilities towards the outcomes in a national plan. Is there a problem with that model, or are there any issues with that model? There is accountability and keeping the momentum going behind those local plans and how accountable the local plans are, and people are to delivering against those. I think that what is going to be critical is that the national plan and the national advisory group are very explicit in the responsibilities that we are reporting back. I think that there is a danger that it becomes an exercise where we do not see progress. It needs to have some momentum behind it and it needs to have some accountability in terms of deliverables. I am trying to understand—let me progress just a little bit more—and understand why you feel—you are obviously expressing concern about a statement as opposed to a plan. I am trying to understand why you think that a statement would be worse than a plan. A statement would be a tick-box exercise, but a plan would not be a tick-box exercise, because it could equally be a tick-box exercise if you want to make it like that. If a local body has to publish a statement detailing how it will achieve the outcomes in the national plan, as long as the national plan has that detail. It is surely a statement from that local authority, for example, saying, this is how we intend to do this, how we intend to achieve it or how we intend to make progress towards the outcomes in the national plan. That is not a tick-box exercise, but it is actually quite a focused way of achieving the outcomes that are laid out in the national plan. I think that providing—there is a reporting mechanism back, and there is a sense that within that statement there is intent and action that can be measurable, and that people can see a tangible improvement. That is the critical part. There have been a number of examples where there have been statements, but no intent and no movement behind them. The important factor being that there is the intent of how local plans would be delivered is really important, and the role of the national advisory councillor committee, or whatever it is that it is created, in having some kind of accountability and monitoring of that. I will come to other members of the panel in one moment. The important point is that the principal, if you like, is that you have the intent, monitoring, progress and publication of outcomes. It is all of that detail that you are concerned about. Whether it is a statement or a plan is, in a sense, slightly less important, is the fact that it has to have some solidity behind it, in effect, of accountability. I think that having the national task group is critical to that, and having the momentum behind that as well, so that there is accountability. Okay, thank you. I believe that Frankie and then Avril as well wanted to contribute here. Key to success of this bill is that public bodies should really think about, consider what the issues are for them, for the services that they offer. Those will be individual to the different listed authorities. They really need to carefully consider what is involved for them. They will have the national plan, and they can think about how they can achieve those issues off the national plan, but that will not, in a statement, indicate that they are exploring the issues as they experience them in their particular field. It is really important that each authority considers carefully about their particular circumstance and what is required in that situation. It has to be contextually relevant. It is not about ticking the boxes off the national plan. That can work to a certain extent, but it will be far more effective if they have individual authority plans. I think that the local authorities' plans should be really focused around action points. The national plan will obviously make statements of intent, which have some sort of force behind them, so that the public authorities understand that they need to do those needs analysis and follow what is outlined in the statement of intent. The British Deaf Association has our BSL charter, which already mentions a great deal of those things. Pages 24 to 26 cover a pretty similar content and context about a statement of intent that encourages police authorities, councils and health authorities to sign up and support, make a pledge, if you like. There are five central pledges in the charter, for example, to work together in this strategic way to make sure that the needs of the community are covered. When we talk about a statement, we really want to see a statement of intent. The last word intent is the most important one, because it strengthens the statement and takes something that exists in philosophy and puts it into practice. We have just heard how important it is to have plans in place. However, we heard from some of the written evidence that information on what should be included in a BSL plan is currently quite vague, and we have also heard from COSLA that there was a lack of clarity. So, what are the panel's view on what should be included in both national and authority plans in order that they can be effective? I think that there are five key areas that I could summarise these into. I think that the Facebook comments have highlighted this, as well as the other evidence. The area of education is key. Following that health, social care, particularly for elderly deaf people who are suffering from dementia and other conditions, that is an identified gap in services to promote leisure, cultural and artistic inclusion of deaf people as a fourth. The fifth area that is equally important is employment. We have mentioned this issue before. Deaf children's access to their own education in their own language so that they acquire a holistic wellbeing that gives them a sound foundation for their future. We have talked about interpreters in health services, but we have growing mental health issues, and we do not have councillors that are competent. The employment opportunities for deaf people, as I am sure you appreciate, are woefully inadequate and behind the general population. Those are the five key areas that I would like to highlight. I totally agree with what Avril has just said. I just like to add in their early years and early intervention. Support for families who have deaf babies, making sure that they get the right support in those early years to facilitate growth, development and healthy lives thereafter. About the early years and family sign, for example, we do not have a national programme for family sign in Scotland, which is really vital in supporting those 90 per cent of parents who are hearing who have a deaf child and promote a means of communication in the early years. We know how significant and important the early years are. Just to reinforce that point about early years being critical in the plans in terms of action. You mentioned five or six key areas that you feel should be included in national and authority plans, but should there be more detail on the content of plans that are included in the bill? A lot more detail, a lot more flesh on the bones. As you have already said, the bill might not be in the face of the bill. It is more belonging in the national plan, providing that link between the legislation and the practice, as we have said. Addding in early intervention, as Frankie said, would give us six key areas. As long as there was a clear link between those areas and prioritisation, we have to think of that as a long-term iterative process. The world changes, new issues will come up and we need to be flexible and adaptable. I would like to ask about the performance review that is proposed. The bill proposes that each parliamentary session of the Scottish ministers should undertake a performance review and that provides an account of measures taken and outcomes attained. I have read the British Deaf Association Scotland's evidence and it says that if there is a performance review, it should not be a simple tick box exercise. It should be a formative and summative evaluation component. However, when we talk to COSLA, COSLA has come back and said that local authorities have to report to the Scottish Government on this, which could be quite difficult. They do not like that they think that it should possibly go down the idea of community planning partnerships. If we went down the COSLA route of the community planning partnerships, how could we get a national picture of where things lie with the reviews and the outcomes in BSL? That is a good question. If you have a wide performance review that focuses on two areas, you have talked about the difference between formative and regular iterative reviews that can provide quick fixes and solutions to issues that are identified and a summative assessment that takes a longer view on achievements and improvements, but you are quite right. The review comes from the community itself. You need to tap into that local knowledge about what is happening on the ground, so the answer is both. Local performance reviews should feed into our national picture. To give you an example, the BDA has a participation project that we are working on now, where we consult and review our services to the community, and that could provide a model for how that may work between authorities, councils and the larger context. The COSLA response has said that it wants to be done on a local basis. Of course, we would put an and in there, not an or. It is very important that we get those local contributions so that we understand what is happening, but it feeds in and gives us a national picture. If I am saying this correctly, Avril, you are saying that we have to stick with the idea of a national review, but we have to feed in at the community planning level. Yes, that is correct. You would look at both of them. The local stuff would be very much the everyday access. What is going on on the ground? For that to be regular would make it effective. That is the community partnership model that you talk about, where we have a collaborative data collection that provides for those reviews. That is mentioned. If an authority is not performing correctly with the national picture, the idea that they are talking about is naming and shaming authorities. Do you think that that is enough, or do you think that there would have to be more to deal with the whole situation if the national picture came back and said that there were areas that were not delivering? That is a tough question, because I think that sanctions might make people more proactive, but it might also lead to them setting very insubstantial targets in the first place, because if they are worried about sanctions, they will just make things easier to achieve. I think that it is a balancing act. I think that that is something that will need to be incorporated into the reviewing process. I think that it would be good for authorities to be allowed to aim high and fail, but to be supported in that. If they continually fail, that is when sanctions might need to be brought in. It is a bit of a carrot and stick act at the moment. I think that you need to tread quite gently to begin with. Naming and shaming is probably the only sanction that there is, so that is probably eventually, if things continually go down, a route of non-compliance. If you could somehow look at, as Frankie said, how often failure happens and what support has been given when inadequacies have been identified. The focus is on resolving. You are looking at a positive way forward when issues are identified. Only when authorities are clearly ignoring or disregarding those could there be some sort of sanction. However, in terms of the bill itself, being a promotional bill and whether it has the strength to do that, I am not entirely sure. I think that the key is that we have to be supportive in the first, second, third and so many instances. Ultimately, sanctions will be limited, so it would have to be seen as a last resort. We could also look at the best practice model or best performance model. Authorities or organisations that are not doing so well can look to those that are succeeding. That is very much a constructive, collaborative way of celebrating success and using that as blueprints for how other authorities and organisations can improve. We are really struggling for time, Frankie, so you need to be very quick. I think that examples of good practice exist currently, but what we would like is some consistency across the nation. I do not think that it would be difficult to model and share those examples of good practice. I have a question that follows on from what Frankie has just said, just to finish off today. The Scottish Government has suggested that the BSL national advisory group could undertake collective consultation on authority plans. That is to avoid local groups or small groups being swamped by requests to undertake reviews of local plans. I just wondered what your view was of a collective consultation process driven from the centre, if you like, rather than more localised consultation by lots of different groups, with the danger of certain groups being swamped with requests for reviews, etc. Allen? Local consultation is good, but you have to consider how many authorities there are, and there is the potential of people being over-surveyed and things being missed. The collective consultation certainly has some advantages of picking up the gaps, but rather than either, it is an and situation, but the collective consultation seems, in theory, like a good idea. Avril? What, first of all, we would like to say is that the Facebook initiative that the Scottish Parliament took is an excellent example of being open and outward facing, being consultative in a very cost-effective way. You know how many contributions you have had, so we would like to congratulate you on that and say that this should be an on-going part of a consultation process with the deaf community. Local consultations can, of course, happen, but rather than making them too onerous, what you can do is tap into the expertise of organisations such as the British Deaf Association. We have already got our participation survey going on. We are doing this outreach work in the community. There is evidence and work available that can feed into the process. There is no need to reinvent the wheel constantly, and there are really good cost-effective ways for the Government to leverage the expertise from our organisations and from technologies such as Facebook so that we allow vital local knowledge to be fed up into those plans. It does not need to be expensive, it does not need to be time-consuming or onerous. If we are strategic about it, I think that we can have our cake and eat it. One final question, which I want to just, it should be a very quick yes or no answer really. The timescale suggested by the bill, and I think that this is complicated, so I want to read it out properly. The bill proposes that the national plan should be produced no later than six months after the start of each parliamentary session, and that authority plans should be published no later than six months after the national plan, but for the first set of plans, the relevant period should be 12 months. That, to me, is a complicated way to do it, and I think that the Government agrees. They have suggested a five or a seven-year cycle for plans that is more in line with the Gaelic language act, and I just wondered what your view on that was. Heather? I would agree that it just sounds very complicated. I think that if we have got something that works for Gaelic, then we should be adopting that for BSL. Okay, thank you. The rest of the panel agrees with that. If it works, use it. It's not a yes or no answer, I'm afraid, but I'll be brief. We'd like to see as much achieved in the first session as possible, I suppose, because five or seven-year plans are concerned, of course, when you think of the education of deaf children, that is five or seven years in their lives, so all their opportunities are lost over a long time period like that, so it very much depends on which part of the strategy and the service provision we're looking at. Okay, that's very helpful, can I? We've gone a little bit over time, I should say, but that's been very informative and very welcome. I thank you all for your contributions this morning. I understand that the committee got a lot out of this first panel session, so thank you very much. I'm going to suspend now for five minutes to allow us to change our witnesses. I mean, I think that if we talk about being a vulnerable group, I would suggest that that's because that we're not listening to what the community wants, and so we define what is best for the community rather than hearing what they're telling us is best for them. We heard in evidence, and we've seen in written submissions and in the Facebook submissions that the Quality Act, the Human Rights Act, isn't standing up at the minute. Particularly in the health service has been the examples, but we're giving other examples this morning, but in the health service where provision should be made, and you spoke about the human rights framework and the Quality Act, but that isn't being implemented in the way that it should be, and a lot of people who have seen in written submissions have said that they could implement that right, but they would have to go to lawyers, they would have to take it from a formal process, and frankly, they're not able to do so with the barriers that they're already facing. Therefore, do you not see this bill as the promoting language would help with the Equality Act and Human Rights Act and act with that, rather than against that and be an add-on to that? Generalisation to say that the needs of the profoundly deaf communities are not being addressed by NHS in Scotland generally. I think that you have to look at the work. Sorry, sorry. You added generally to what I said, therefore that's a problem where we go. It would be absolutely if I had said that, but that's not what I said. It is important to look at what public bodies are doing at an individual level. Some public bodies are exemplary in their provision, perhaps others are less so. In Grampian, we take advice from the local deaf communities. We have involvement events. The agenda that we set is their agenda. We're not imposing an agenda. We are asking what can we do to make our services more accessible to you, what will make life simpler, and that is the agenda that we are following. The question was, so you didn't address that. Do you think that the BSL bill will add to the Equality Act and Human Rights framework? Yes, I think that it would, but there are other options as well. I understand that, but that was my question. I think that it's concerning about the examples of people experiencing poor access to NHS services. We would hope that that is not the case throughout Scotland. Unfortunately, there have been cases where that has happened. In our thinking, can we make sure that public bodies, including the NHS, are following the Equality Act requirements better to make sure that the needs of BSL users are being addressed? Should we focus more on that rather than on developing new plans around BSL? Our position is that we would like to see the Equality Act and the Human Rights Act being used better by public bodies. We are not just not sure whether the requirement to do an additional plan would strengthen that or not. In terms of NHS Health Scotland, we are a national board and we provide a lot of health information. We have recently been reviewing our inclusive communications policy and have been doing a health inequalities impact assessment on that policy. We constantly review the requests that we get for BSL translations and hope to be responsive to that. That is something that we keep under review. I have listened with interest this morning to the panel's discussion. We will feed that back to our organisation and to the broader NHS equality and diversity network. That is what you were saying. It does not seem an unreasonable proposition. I do not think that any of us are in the business of wanting to legislate simply for the sake of it. As Siobhan was indicating, we have got an Equality Act from 2010, a DDA from 2005 and a human rights framework that has been in existence for as long as this Parliament. There are undoubtedly exemplars in the health service and education in the range of public services across the country. Clearly, the message is that that is patchy. I think that what we are getting back from the deaf community is a frustration that, despite the legislative levers that are significantly more substantive than the bill, we are seeing patchiness. What the bill perhaps offers an opportunity to do is identify and symbolise the importance that we attach to BSL and that those levers through the Equality Act, through the human rights framework, we can start to see a more consistent approach to improving access to deaf and hard of hearing communities. Is that not a reasonable proposition for them to make? I do not think that it is unreasonable and I welcome the opportunity to hear the arguments and the discussion around that. I think that we would want to flag up a concern if we have existing legislation that covers some of those issues in terms of equity of access to NHS services and that is currently not working. Would additional legislation focused particularly on BSL work in practice as well? The challenge for us has been almost to manage expectations and that what the bill will do but what it will not do is something that we have been wrestling with. Through the evidence that we have taken so far, it would appear that the levers for making progress here are not through the delivery of plans but that gives it a status that can then be enforced by praying and aid, the Equality Act, the human rights framework and the EDA. Very eloquently expounding is perhaps highlighting an enforcement and monitoring issue in that I would agree that there is inconsistency and there is a need to ensure consistency and to enforce the regulations and the law legislation that is already in place. I would agree that perhaps yes, the BSL bill would give a much higher profile to the role of BSL but there would still need to be some stepping up of regulatory mechanisms. Otherwise, the BSL bill could be brought in as the BSL act but not take the debate and the needs of the profoundly deaf communities any further forward. I would like to ask the panel the same question that I asked the previous panel. Some of the people giving evidence, some of the groups giving evidence indicated a concern that the bill would use up scarce resources and, indeed, COSLA stated that there is a risk that it will become an expensive bureaucratic exercise. We are using resources here on developing plans. Is that the best use of resources or could the same resources be used to better support BSL users? I can start and other people can come in, as they wish. I think that what you heard from the first panel was clearly a desire for more services, for more support out of that translation services or direct support and access for BSL users. I think that what the bill does is create a mechanism for establishing plans. What it does not do is create a mechanism for establishing additional services for people. I think that that is an issue as we see it. Clearly, as Mr MacArthur was outlining, there is a need for managing expectation about what the bill does. There is a balancing act there, but our concern is that, if you look at the financial memorandum and the SPICE briefing, the upper end of the cost, I granted that for everything, and there is about £6 million. That is not an insubstantial amount of money and whether that would be better spent in other ways to invest in front-line services. Clearly, there is a concern for us. Yes, there is a need for promotions and giving BSL a status that perhaps it has not had in the past, but that does not necessarily lead to the actual services that would make people's lives different. Colin, James has got a supplementary drum in. Are you still... I have more to ask, but yes. Regarding Mr Nicholl's comments, I thought that it was pretty clear from the first panel that they thought that the bill was a very strong symbol about how to move forward with BSL. You are right that everybody would like more resources for different services, and they did make that point, but nobody at any point said that they thought that that money should be better spent on more services than they did on the bill. What we are outlining is the fact that is the money that has been invested in the bill truly the best way of getting money for communities and BSL users. I suppose that all that we are outlining is an alternative question. The point that I am making is that the panel said that they felt it was. I do not want to put words in the mouth of the panel members, but you asked us a question. You asked the question as to whether we think that... And you referred to the panel. Yes, but they also talked about the services that you would have to spend money on translation services. The bill does not deliver translation services. The bill allows plans to be developed. If you are saying that translation services are what you would want to invest your money in, then clearly that is not covered by the bill. Can I just jump in here to make a point? The Gallic Language, much the criticism of the BSL bill, I think probably is repeating the criticism that was made of the Gallic Language Bill when it was first proposed. Yet we have seen now the national Gallic Language plan in place. I see even in my local train station that Gallic Language signs have appeared. There seems to have been exactly what was predicted—a change in the mood and the attitude towards Gallic. People think about it more and they think about what they should do in terms of whether they are changing signage, or whether they are doing other things, or whether they are producing material. They think about Gallic now. Isn't that really what we are talking about here? The evidence about what the BSL bill, if it became an act, would do is exactly what has begun to happen with Gallic. That is an entirely appropriate thing, and we are not arguing for the promotional aspects of that. I suppose that all that we are saying at a time of scarce resources you have to be absolutely certain that that is indeed what you want to do. There is a counterpoint to that, and all that we are doing is to make that point clearly. It is for the committee to make a judgment and a balance on all these issues. Just moving on from that one. What does the panel understand by the term promotion of BSL? What specific things should that entail? A basic is to ensure that we have in all areas of Scotland sufficient numbers of properly qualified BSL interpreters. Speaking for the north-east of Scotland, NHS Auckland has one qualified BSL interpreter. In Grampian, we have four, one of whom has been not available to us due to maternity leave. Now, there are occasions, maybe every five or six weeks, when we have to rearrange an outpatient appointment simply because a deaf person wishes to attend, but we don't have a BSL interpreter available to us. A concern of my colleagues and members of deaf communities in Grampian is that we do not have sufficient BSL interpreters. As opposed to promoting BSL? It is important to promote BSL, but you need to have BSL interpreters available. You can promote a service, but if you don't have the wherewithal to meet the demand from that service, it is a very serious issue. It is a case of promoting, yes, but also ensuring that you have the sufficient BSL interpreters and the resources available to meet demand. At the moment, there are issues there. I will add around the promoting. Having listened to the committee panel earlier this morning, it is about promoting BSL as a language in its own right, and that is certainly something at Health Scotland that we would be doing anyway as part of our work in terms of promoting inclusive communications around the publications that we produce. When we review our policy around that, ensuring that BSL and our staff are aware that BSL is a language and that they are sufficiently trained in understanding around that. Without wanting to speak on behalf of other NHS boards, I think that in terms of staff training, that is something that they would do in terms of promoting BSL as a language. We have to interrupt you again. I think that Gordon has got a very small supplementary on this point. I get the impression rightly wrong when there is a wee bit of resistance to any more legislation coming through. What I would be keen to understand, given the views of the first panel, is what action is your organisation currently taking to promote BSL and how effective is that current promotion? I can speak for our local area rather than the national picture. We promote BSL web clips on the Falkirk Council website, so if there are particular things happening in the council and it would not be only on social work or health or social work or education, it would be across the council business, we would have a web clip. It might be that the bin times are changing or the colours are changing or new bins are being issued, but those basic information, which is quite important, we offer translation slots. I know that in the previous panel they talked about letters and not being able to have them interpreted into their language. We have an afternoon a week where people can come and bring letters and have them explained. At a more national level, we have locally online interpreting, but the Scottish Government is rolling its NHS 24 pilot of online interpreting. That is being rolled out to all public bodies from 22 March. That is something that will promote access to BSL to all of our service users. We work closely with north-east sensory services, we work closely with Aberdeen Action on Disability, we have involvement events, we do everything possible to make it clear to members of the different deaf communities that BSL interpretation is available. That is very important. Within our own staff, we do introduction to BSL training every year and we have staff who have gone to level 1 and level 2, not to replace the professional BSL interpreters, but to act as communicators, people who can greet members of the deaf communities when they come to outpatient clinics and help to give reassurance and support. I think that in Grampian and certainly on Auckland as well, our local deaf communities are aware of the availability of BSL interpretation services and we make them freely available. The Harriet Watt first BSL degree now and we also offer we have students studying with us at both masters and PhD level. We encourage people to apply for courses and ensure that they will be supported. We will be looking to further look at access to services and how easily students can access services. From the panel, the promotion of BSL is somewhat dependent on the availability of BSL interpreters and the interpretation of the word promotion is really about access to services and additional services. Is that how the panel sees it? Making sure that members of the local deaf communities are aware that BSL interpreters are readily available when accessing healthcare and making sure that all members of the communities know that it is available to them, it is provided by NHS Grampian and NHS Orkney and it is there and it is readily available. That is not a cash limited budget. Whatever we need to spend to ensure that when healthcare is provided, members of the deaf communities have effected two-way communication, that is what we provide. Interpretation of promoting? Well, I would be happy to hear what you would suggest as an alternative to that definition. Happy to hear what the panel thinks about promoting. The promotion that was talked about earlier around about Gaelic language and trying to build public awareness and knowledge about BSL as a language. That goes on top of how you access local services and what is available to you that has been outlined already. There are two aspects of that. Perhaps the bill might help with the first one, which is the public awareness of the language. We have put a note of caution around what it does to signpost towards services and raising expectations about additional services that might fall on from that local promotion. The two aspects of it—we can clearly see that it could be helpful for one and it could even be helpful for the other, but only if you manage expectations about what you will be delivering in terms of local services. There have been a number of comments suggesting that there could be some unintended consequences for other languages or forms of communication used by the deaf community, mainly around a detrimental effect on the available resources to support people with other communications needs. Do you have a view on whether those other forms of communication used by deaf people could be negatively affected by the BSL bill and in what ways? In our area, we have a contract and it is across communication support, so the contract that we have is for 10 hours of interpreting. That would cover BSL, hands-on signing, deafblind manual, lip-speaking and note-taking. One of the concerns that I would have is that if we have to then take BSL out of that or that it is dealt with differently, the economies of scale may not be as is and it could become more costly for us rather than less costly. That was a possibility for the bill that had to be separated, would it not just be that you would have to monitor what you were doing? I suppose that that is for me the bit that is not totally clear in the bill, because the bill is very clear that it is BSL and that it is about BSL. I am not clear about what that will mean for the other communication support needs of which we have many. Certainly, in terms of our population, there would be a greater majority in the other group requiring the note-taking support or communication aids, which would be... Sorry, can I clarify that? Are you saying that the BSL plays a minority role in the services that you give? I am correct me if I am wrong here, but the suggestion from the panel was that the BSL was the largest part of those services. The service that I manage is a cross-sensory impairment, so within that BSL the numbers would be the smallest. The percentage of time allocated would be higher, but the numbers of the population would be lower because it is a cross-sensory impairment. Okay, thank you for that. Did anybody else get any comments? We have similar concerns. At the moment, we are probably in the unique position that we have access to funding called disabled students allowance, and that provides any support that a deaf student would need and includes note-takers and things like equipment, video cameras, so it covers a range of support. Just this focus on BSL alone raises concerns for us in that area. So you would need some kind of security around the fact that the resources are not going to be diverted from the other services? Those resources are directed at the individual. It is their money, it is their funding, and they can use it in the best way for their own communication. We would meet with a disabled student early on, a deaf student early on and find out exactly what their needs are, and then we can apply that funding to cover all of their needs, not just BSL. It is obviously very, very important. For people with acquired profound hearing loss, lip reading is also very important. In terms of using BSL, especially amongst the younger users of BSL, the 3G and 4G mobile phone technology is very important because I have seen on a regular basis younger BSL users holding the phone and Skyping our face timing and signing to each other. It was suggested that I put forward the idea that perhaps some Scottish Government support for members of deaf communities who want to use these facilities, perhaps some financial support towards smartphones, androids to make sure that those tools can be quite expensive and readily available. The bill should include specific reference to the needs of deaf-blind BSL users, and if so, in what way? There is a wide variation. The last panel said that people who are deaf-blind come from a BSL background. My experience is that many of them are visually impaired first and blind and then become deaf, so their first language would be English. Therefore, care would need to be taken and it would need to be spelled out as to what part of the deaf-blind community you are referring to. We had one deaf-blind communicator who has retired and made it clear that they no longer wish to provide services, so when we require a deaf-blind communicator, we have to bring them up from the central belt, which obviously involves a great deal of planning. Do you need to move on to highlighting the importance of deaf-blind communicators? Absolutely, and the need for additional training, possibly through the bill, through the bill or whatever other mechanism that the committee considered appropriate. On that point, if that is the case, we have to go out with the health board, then how are you meeting the needs through the DDA and equality act, as you spoke of in the first question? By bringing up a deaf-blind communicator from the central belt? That take for the user and their appointment in the health service, and if it is an emergency... It can take several days. It depends on the availability of the deaf-blind communicator. The point is, if it is an emergency, if you are in a health situation, as you can imagine, and everyone is stressed, having to wait several days for an interpreter... Nobody waits days for emergency treatment with respect. So you would just go without the interpreter in that case now? In those circumstances, it would be a clinical decision, obviously, but in those circumstances there can be assistance from family members. However, our preferred option, if there is time and it is circumstances dictate, is to bring a deaf-blind communicator to Grampian. Does that just highlight the problem with the equality of access that we have heard from the first panel and from many who have contributed to the committee's work so far on this bill? I think that what it highlights is a need for... I personally would like to see the degree courses that operate to train BSL interpreters. I would like to see them fully funded, and I would like to see the individuals undertaking these courses salaried during the course of their training. In the same way that nurses in training are salaried. Perhaps once they have completed their training, a guaranteed minimum income for three years, because most tend to be self-employed, a guaranteed minimum level of income for three years, we need to get more people coming forward to be trained as BSL interpreters, we need to have more people coming forward to be trained as deaf-blind communicators. Therefore, are you saying that you currently have a vacancy or vacancies for both interpreters in BSL and deaf-blind? No, we do not employ deaf-blind communicators, we do not employ BSL interpreters. Of the ones that we access in Grampian, three are freelance, and we have a service-level agreement with them, each of the three individuals. The fourth person works for north-east sensory services, and we access them through north-east sensory services, so there are four in Grampian, and that is how we make sure that we have access to those four. On the deaf-blind BSL interpreter at you, are you currently advertising, pursuing and trying to find somebody in the area? We have tried to find somebody. We know that that individual is not available, and that is why we bring someone up a deaf-blind communicator from the central ground. Sorry, maybe my question was not clear. I understand that the person that you have been using in the past is currently unavailable. I get that. What are you doing to pursue a replacement for that person locally in the Grampian area? Right, there is not a replacement in the Grampian area. We have asked all of the various agencies, we have sought far and wide that there is no one in Grampian who can fulfil that role. There is nobody in the entire Grampian area who is a qualified and trained deaf-blind communicator. Thank you. Liam. Thank you. Before turning to the issue of ministerial responsibilities, there is a comment, I think, made by Maria, about the use of English and the development of sight loss and loss of hearing as well. I think that you referred to publications that are produced, and I think that you were talking about note-taking support. It strikes me that we are talking about BSL as a verbal language. What predominantly is the written language of most users of BSL in Scotland? Is it English? BSL is a visual language. It is not a written language. It is in terms of service delivery. For us, it comes within the communication support. Just incidentally, following on from some of the difficulties that they have in Grampian in terms of getting deaf-blind and communicators, our greatest difficulty in the Falkirk area would be to get lip speakers. There is a huge dearth of lip speakers. Those people would be coming from an English background having lost their hearing, but that is in an area that there is not a course in Scotland at the current time. That is an area that is much more difficult for us. Moving on to the issue of ministerial responsibilities, the bill talks about having a minister, a dedicated minister responsible for BSL. The Scottish Government has expressed some anxieties around that point to a collective responsibility, albeit that the responsibility for the national plan would fall within a particular portfolio and therefore under a specific minister. Just being interested in the panel's views about whether or not a dedicated minister would be a positive or unnecessary requirement under the bill, and if so, what the responsibilities of that minister specifically ought to be beyond the development of the national plan? I do not think that we have a strong view on that. I can see the Government's point of view in terms of collective responsibility across portfolios. We do at the moment to have a minister with responsibility for languages, so there is a potential logical home for BSL within his portfolio potentially, but we do not have a strong view as to whether there should be a clear responsibility given to a minister or not. Clearly, what goes into the national plan—I think that there will be some discussion on that later on—is of an interest to us, but the actual ministerial responsibility, I think that is for Government to decide, albeit that we do have a language minister at the moment. We have a strong view on that position. The Government has also proposed the idea of a national advisory group or national advisory body made up of ministers, COSLA, and representatives of the deaf community. I think that the latter has indicated a general support for that but stressed the importance of ensuring that the group as a whole is a majority from within the deaf community. Again, are there any comments that you would make about the desirability, the effectiveness that such a group could perform and, indeed, the balance of membership? I think that the relationship between the advisory group and the national plan is an important one. Clearly, it would be helpful if we were to have a national plan that is developed in a consultative way and engages with everybody involved in the BSL community but also service providers. Our strong preference is to develop anything in a joint basis and to do that as joint up a ways as possible. The membership of the advisory group would need to represent everyone who is involved. It is a large group, so it is not without its challenges in operation on that. However, if you are to have a national plan, at least there is a logic to having an advisory group to advise us on that. Albeit, we have issues about what would be in the national plan and how that might relate to local plans within the proposed legislation. We need to be alive to the fact that, as you said, the group does not get so big as almost to be unmanagable. Is there perhaps a case for saying that you have a national advisory group that has the potential and the scope to assign bits of work and input to others? We may not necessarily sit on the group on a standing basis. Is that a model that might work? That sort of model works well with the Government. It is sort of having a subgroup or whatever you would want to call it. That is pretty tried and tested in terms of civil service practice. I do not think that that is a difficult thing. Just to be clear, there would not be a resistance to the proposition from the BSL community that whatever the configuration and whatever the size, it would have a majority as a service user on that group. Others can speak for themselves. Clearly, we need to know what the exact remit of the group is and what it is actually there to do. Once you have that, the membership will have to follow the function of the group. Clearly, it has to be a representative of all the interests around the table. I think that we would make a judgment on that once we have actually seen all the detail. I do not think that we can go further than that at this time. In the sense of those from service providers, we will all have official titles and jobs functions that provide a persuasive case as to why they should be on the group. I suspect that, for service users, that might be a bit of a grey area. Therefore, unless we accept the principle that there should be that inbuilt majority of service users, there is a risk that justification for membership is easier to be made on the service provided on the service user side. Is that a fair concern? I can accept that line of lining argument. I suppose that all I am saying is that there is a potentially large group of people to be around that table. There is a discussion to be had about the principle of that, and we do not have a strong position on whether there should be a majority of BSL users on the committee or not. I think that what we have a stronger view on is how potentially the national structures that might be set up, how those might relate to local structures and what the through-flow of information is between those national groups, if it is to be set up, you would have to look at exactly what the function of that group would do. Your line of reasoning, I would accept, but you would need to look at everything in the round once you have the detail. I do not know whether you are in for the first panel that you may have heard, but I am going to ask you about the Scottish Government's view or suggestion that listed authorities, instead of publishing plans, should publish a statement. Their idea being that the statement would set out how each authority plan to make progress towards priorities identified in the national plan. I just wondered what the panel's view was of the question of a plan versus a statement. Provided that it fulfilled the primary function that you would be to give, BSL, the appropriate recognition and provision that it requires across Scotland, across the bodies, it would be, I would suggest, for the committee to decide, which would be the best option, and that the vehicle might be the equality outcomes, which all public bodies in Scotland were required to produce under the Equality Act 2010, specific duty Scotland regulations 2012. They are coming up for updating in April of this year, so there are a number of vehicles, but I would suggest that it would be for the committee to decide which vehicle they consider to be most appropriate to take this forward. I think that a statement could be symbolic in the way that the BSL community wants to see their language recognised. It could set out what an authority plans to do to make sure that it meets the needs of BSL users. There are previous types of statements that public bodies have developed, such as an equal pay statement, which sets out what organisations are going to do to close the pay gap. It could follow something like that, or it could be much more worked up in terms of a statement that might have some outcomes attached to it. There are various ways in which that could work. My point of view is important, and it will be contained in the document, if you want to call it that. It is important that, whether it is a plan or a statement, we are actually saying that we are committing to whether that is within a public statement or agreeing around a plan. A statement would suggest that it is probably an intent to deliver something, or a plan might suggest that there is something a little bit more detailed line behind that. The language might be as important. I can understand why the previous speakers would err towards a plan rather than a statement, but the heart of the matter is what it is that is contained within it. That is where our question is lying. Dins is needed on what would be contained before you could decide whether a plan or a statement was the best way to go. On that point, what should be contained within the plans, I will ask the same questions that I asked in the earlier panel. We have heard from the written evidence and Cosly themselves said that there was a lack of clarity around the expected content of the national plan, and we heard from another written submission that it was quite vague. The first panel highlighted six key areas for them, and they wanted to specify a certain level of service and measurable outcomes. What I am keen to understand from the second panel is what do you think should be included in both national and the authority plans in order that the plans can be as effective as possible? That is the fundamental question. I do not think that I would have an answer for that. If you look at what the previous panel talked about, education, health, social care, leisure employment and early years, all big areas, you are talking probably the largest. There are probably not many public services not covered by that. The issue for us is what happens and what do you mean by taking education in an area that I know something about compared to the other areas? What additional services are being unlocked by the national plan or indeed the local plan for education that is not being delivered now? How would those be funded? How would those be resourced? Not just in terms of money but staff time and being able to get suitably trained and qualified people. Is this a rearticulation of what is already out there, albeit with a greater prioritisation and maybe promotion, or is this about unlocking new resources to go into new service delivery? That is really the question for us. If it is the latter one, I think that that means that you are looking at quite a different sort of piece of legislation that we inevitably have to have further funding to allow it to be delivered properly. Will anyone else want to comment on that? Is there a health service that would be around the equity of access, which I would suggest is covered already through NHS boards' equality outcomes and their plans around interpretation and communication support for patients? There has been a suggestion that the preparation of plans in use that you said, Mr Nicol, will divert funds from other areas that currently support the BSL community. Is there an estimate of what the additional costs would be for your organisation? Have you calculated how much the potential additional costs would be? The only work that we have done is to look at the financial memorandum, so we have not done any additional costs. I suppose that what we are saying is that, if you are, and it would appear to be that it is round about £6 million of additional costs, Government estimates that they have spent around £2 million or planned to spend £2 million already over 2016-2020 in BSL, so that would have been an additional cost of £4 million. There is a question as to where that additional cost comes from, whether that is met within existing budgets or whether that is funded by Scottish Government. If it is to be met within existing budgets, then that clearly would put pressure on something and you would have to make a choice whether that comes from outside this sort of sensory impairment budget or whether it is within that would have to be a choice that would have to be weighed up. Clearly, there is a concern for us if there is not additional funding and there are some additional responsibilities to comply to, then that could divert resources from elsewhere. I have a similar question to the last panel, but the bill is obviously about performance review. It is all about seeing how we best practice, share best practice and ensure that we deliver on everything that we want to do. However, each parliamentary session of Scottish ministers should undertake a performance review of authority plans, and that includes an account of measures taken and outcomes attained. Many of the organisations involved thought that the performance review was a good mechanism for holding public authorities account, but COSLA actually felt that it was confused and confused with the accountability relationships that exist within local government. Robert, can you tell me why? Can you explain that to me then? Local government is not accountable to Scottish Government, so that is part of it. However, what we are arguing about is that if there is to be enhanced accountability for service delivery, that should be with local communities. We heard a little bit about that this morning. We are not saying that there is not a need for national planning and co-operation nationally. Clearly, we have the ability to translate national priorities into what happens locally. We also have single outcomes agreements. There are mechanisms for translating national sense of direction into what happens locally, but what we are concerned about is the language round about performance review. Who is performing for reviewing the local plans? Who makes a judgment as to whether a plan is fit for purpose or not? We have a range of services covered potentially within this education. One of them already has scrutiny structures for education, of which independent scrutiny is brought to bear on service delivery. We have other forms of performance appraisal internally within authorities, as well as external through organisations such as the Care Inspectorate. What additional things are we creating here for the specific purpose of this piece of legislation? The question for us is where is the most appropriate accountability to lie? Arguably, if there is to be an enhanced accountability between BSL users, it should be at the local level and not necessarily at the national level, albeit, as I have said, there are mechanisms that can be best of both worlds. The actual BSL performance review is the basis of which is for the Parliament to hold Scottish ministers to account and for ministers to hold listed authorities, of which local authorities would be one of them to account as well. We are giving everyone the opportunity, the bill would give everyone the opportunity to be open and democratic. I find it difficult. I have not been a former councillor myself. I know how community planning partnerships work. One of the concerns that the British Deaf Association Scotland had was that it wanted to make sure that it was not just a simple box-ticking exercise that we shared earlier on today, but shared best practice. If we kept everything at a local level, how could we get a national picture of how things were going? We are all accountable on that in order to make sure that we can make the bill make a difference. There is a difference in my view between getting a national picture and ensuring a direct line of accountability for delivery and then making a judgment as to whether somebody has succeeded or not in terms of the service delivery. Clearly, there are ways in which we can get a national picture about certain aspects of whatever strategy we would want to implement. We can choose how to report on that. Our concern is the notion of performance appraisal effectively about how a national organisation such as the Scottish Government would perform an appraise a local organisation like local government for something that the local authority would have closest to the community, closest to the services that it would deliver. Effectively, we are almost getting in a second guessing situation as to who knows best. That is a concern for us and all we are doing is flagging up the fact that we see that that is a concern. One of the things that the British Deaf Association Scotland says is that this whole idea of a national performance review gives a sense of collective share of mission to achieve the goals of the plans that the community serves. Authorities with us become accountable to the BSL community to ensure engagement, involvement, dialogue and continuous improvement. Is that not something that we should all embrace when we are going down this route and looking at ways to break down the barrier so that we can all work to deliver this? I am looking for enhanced local accountability so that local people, whether they are BSL users or have another sense of payment or something like that, can access services and then have a genuine say about the services that they offer and can play their part in their local processes. We are not arguing for that. All that we are arguing is that we see a concern between the nature of the relationship between the national organisations, which the Scottish Government is one of them, but the national body as well that could be established and how that relates to local decision making and then who makes a judgment later on as to whether something has happened. There is a feeling that performance has not been as successful as we would like and then who makes a judgment on that and then what happens after that. That is the concern that we are flagging up. Robert, I am just trying to get my head round this because basically even if you heard the first panel earlier on today, they were even talking about the limited sanctions that are in the bill are just effectively don't do it again kind of thing, do better, must do better. So they were even talking about they wouldn't even go to that extent, we would try and find if there was an issue, go into an area and try and work together to actually make sure that it's working. So is it not Robert with the best fellow in the world or have we been paranoid about the situation here? I wouldn't say I'm empowered. All I'm saying is that we are an organisation that represents local authorities. We are effectively stressing the importance of local accountability where we think that if there is to be a sanction, it should be a sanction by the local community on the local authority through the mechanisms that already exist and could be established. I think that we would have a big concern as to whether there is a sanction taken by a national organisation to impose that on a local authority and then making a judgment that that is indeed the correct thing to do. I mean that's a very consistent thing for COSLA to argue. So it doesn't necessarily apply to this and doesn't apply in other areas, it's a consistent thing. Where there needs to be that real strong connection is at the local level between communities and those who deliver services on the behalf. It's a different situation within health because health boards are already subject to very thorough annual reviews and the annual review process. I could see no possible reason why the needs of the local deaf communities and the BSL requirements could not become an integral part of that annual review process. In addition, as part of the review process, the minister and team undertaking the review also meet with local people. So it will be quite possible to include local BSL users in the formal meetings process so that the needs could be assessed and whether they were being met. However, I wouldn't see that process as replacing the routine, on-going involvement with the local deaf communities to find out how well services are being met and to ascertain their needs. I think that that would continue, but the annual review would be a good opportunity for external scrutiny as to how well those needs are being met. Do you have duties under the equality mainstream? I wouldn't see a difficulty with expanding that to include what benefits we had brought into this area. It could be covered under the current structure that you have in place. I have one final question, which is about the timescales. Obviously, the bill—I won't read it out again, but it's about every parliamentary session six months after, but 12 months after the first one, etc. What is your view on the timescales proposed in the bill for publication of the national plan? I think that our view was quite complex, as it was set out. I think that there is an additional complexity of fitting in with local elections and things like that, which is a slightly different timescale from parliamentary elections. I think that, if there was a way of simplifying that along lines of what you suggested to the Gaelic language, it would be something that we would want to look at. I accept a point that was given about wanting to see progress, and I can understand that, but it seems quite complex in the way that it is outlined in the bill. Any other views on the timescale? I thank you very much for coming along this morning. We appreciate you taking the time to be here with us and to help us to examine the BSL bill. I am going to spend briefly so that we can allow the next panel to come. Can I welcome our final panel for this morning? Our third panel today is Carly Brownlee from the Scottish Association of Sign Language and Temperatures, Clark Denmark, who is a BSL broadcaster and former academic, Professor Rob Dunbar, chair of Celtic Languages, Literature, History and Antiquities at the University of Edinburgh, and Professor Graham Turner, chair of translation and interpreting studies at Herriot-Watt University. Welcome to you all this morning. Just for everybody's information, Professor Dunbar will be responding in Gaelic to committee questions. Simultaneous English interpretation will be provided through the headsets, which I assume everybody has round the table, while BSL interpretation will also be provided. Can I say to anybody in the gallery who is going to use a headset for the Gaelic to English translation that should set their headphones to channel 1 for the interpretation? Okay, if we are all ready, I am just going to begin. I will start with Shabon McVan. The first question is whether legislation is necessary to promote BSL and what specific outcomes and improvements you consider the bill will deliver. Professor Turner, I am only going to be signing for a couple of sentences. I did want to let you know that I am a BSL user myself, but in respect to your first and preferred language, being English, I will switch back to using English. Sometimes the deaf community refers to people like me in a slightly light-hearted way of saying that we are hard of signing. Out of respect to both sides of that equation, I am going to switch from British Sign Language and go back to my first language, which is indeed English. Thank you for allowing me to do that, and thanks for the question. I think that we have perhaps heard enough already today to know that there is a pretty strong view that the existing legislation is not meeting the aspirations and the needs of the community. I would say and did say in written evidence that this is not a new issue, this is a long-standing issue. Deaf community has been saying in the UK and indeed in other countries since at least 1880 that access to education in sign language is an absolute necessity for the community, and that lots of other aspects of society follow from that. The conference in 1880 that banned the use of sign language in deaf education set a tone for social provision across the board. We have had disability legislation of many different kinds since the Second World War in particular. We have had understanding that British Sign Language is a real and proper language since the 1970s in the UK. Still, here we are discussing the issues and the problems that the community faces. As colleagues have said already today, the Facebook evidence from the community has shown very clearly that despite some of the other evidence that you have heard that provision is in place and the existing legislation can serve needs, etc., it isn't working. Something a little bit different is required. The bill serves that purpose by adding a clarity of focus around British Sign Language as a language. It's not a disability issue, it's not a deaf communication issue, it's simply a linguistic minority issue, and the bill gives us, affords us the opportunity to deal with it in those kinds of terms. Can we just want to contribute to that? To what Graham has said, this has been a very long wait for the deaf community. Edinburgh should be very proud. The very first deaf school in the world was established here in 1760, so we think, hang on, 1760. That was when signing was used. British Sign Language is not a new modern phenomena, and the research bears this out. They were educated the children back then in sign language and, obviously, with their name to integrate into society in English as well, but the best way for deaf people to access English is through British Sign Language. We have over 180 years of history here in this city. This country has the potential to do this. The BDDA, as it was then, with 150-year history, had two very clear aims, the production, the preservation of British Sign Language and also the insistence of British Sign Language in the education. There has been countless manoeuvres since then to change all that. We don't have anything clear since 1889 about clear service provision in the area of education. Graham mentioned the Milan Conference in 1880 banning sign language as one of its resolutions, and that has had a huge knock-on effect. The Royal Commission in Britain was very much swayed by those arguments, and that has led to so many of the problems that we see, not only in education, but in what comes from education throughout deaf people's lives. It has also had the point of view of British Sign Language being an inconvenience, and yet despite all the barriers, the prejudice and the oppression, it has shown itself to be a strong, vibrant language that survives, and it survives for a reason. There were members of that second panel that said, we have this provision and that provision. Like Graham said, it is clearly not working. The contributions to the first panel illustrate the failures, and I have got to congratulate the Scottish Parliament for at least opening this dialogue and taking the lead in the UK. The deaf community is delighted by this move. I would like to support both of those comments. I am here to represent Sassley, the Scottish Association of Sign Language Interpreters, and looking at the second panel, they seem to look at us as a disability issue. We want to remove that view altogether. Really BSL is a language, a culture, an identity, an expressive way of expressing ourselves for people who grow up deaf, and also for us to access information through the use of sign language. We do not rely on sound at all. We use a visual language. This new law will encourage all to see and not BSL as a tool, but part of our lives is not an additional thing that is added on to our lives that is part of us. I think that the bill will really help with that and take a lead on that. Thank you. As the panel has said, we did hear evidence in the second panel that suggested that if we were only to implement the Equality Act or do a bit more on the human rights framework, we would achieve the same outcomes as the primary legislation. Do you agree with that view? I think that the other legislation that has been talked about today is not about to disappear, it will still exist. The notion is that the BSL bill will work in tandem with existing legislation and help to ensure that existing legislation maintains a clear focus on BSL alongside other issues that it deals with. Earlier on today we were talking about the numbers of BSL users, the numbers of lip speakers required and so on. There are, as the census showed, 12,500 approximately BSL users within Scotland, but nobody in this room can tell you how many of those are deaf BSL users. Nobody knows. We are starting from a very poor basis in terms of knowing what provision is required for the BSL-using community. In that context, it becomes very easy for the requirements to support that community to be backgrounded because we know about other communities. We know about the numbers of people with visual impairment. We know, for example, about the numbers of people who are using Macaton in Scotland and so on. British Sign Language users who are themselves deaf, those statistics are not available to anybody. It becomes very easy for the BSL issues to be clouded, lost and pushed to the back of the queue, in effect. The bill, as proposed, is designed to bring those to the foreground when appropriate alongside the other issues that existing legislation should be able to handle. I just want to say a little to the views expressed. Firstly, thank you for the opportunity to come to this meeting and for the opportunity to use Gaelic as part of the evidence that I am giving. I agree that a bill based on the bill is essential from the point of view of the Gaelic users. The Gaelic Act has made a big difference with the development of policies connected to Gaelic, highlighting, advancing the status of Gaelic and the understanding about Gaelic and the needs of the language for users and speakers. I think that users of British Sign Language are very similar to the Gaelic community, as we have heard earlier. It is not a means of conversation. It is about identity. It is about culture, a rich culture. It is to do with language that is just as precious as Gaelic. Because of that, although there is existing legislation and a question of equality is important, there are needs and aspirations of the language community. The language community needs more. I think that this bill will give the community, to the Government and to public bodies, a policy that would be co-ordinated to develop the situation of users and to raise awareness of the culture throughout Scotland for those who use the language. I agree that there is other legislation in place already, but it mentions things such as reasonable adjustments. How do you define what a reasonable adjustment is? Who decides what is reasonable? Is it us or the people providing the services? Who makes that decision? I feel that the BSL bill really supports it because it will depend not on reasonable adjustments but on real achievements and outcomes. For example, if there are occasions when we have gone to hospital, if the doctor asks you, can you lip-reads? That has happened to us. If someone says yes, they say that is great, that is the reasonable adjustment made, but that is not meeting our needs. I feel that the BSL act would stop that and make sure that BSL is provided for people who want it through the use of an interpreter or through other kinds of information or other ways. I fully support what the other panel members have just said. We have existing legislation, not only the Equality Act and the Disability Discrimination Act before it, and there are other pieces of legislation, but they are piecemeal. There is not one clear statement of intent, if you like, about how deaf people who use British Sign Language access services, and that is the stumbling block. We have already fallen over the stumbling block. What we have in terms of foreign language provision in this country far exceeds what we have in British Sign Language, which is a British language. The leaflets that get translated throughout the different authorities and service providers, if we provide equality that way, from the deaf British Sign Language community's point of view, we certainly do not have it. When you look at other countries such as the old colonies like Australia and New Zealand, they actually have this recognition in their legislation. Here, back in the so-called mother country, we do not. We have the old colonies of ours being more progressive, more pioneering than we are. It has been a long way, but it is going to be worth it. We can see what is on the horizon. We can see the attitude that the committee has and that the Parliament has. We want to see it enshrined in legislation. The house and the way for us and the wise can all be done in collaboration and co-operation with the community. I want to bring in James Donnell at this point. I have a question about unintended consequences of the bill. There were a number of comments that suggested that there could be some unintended consequences that would create a detrimental effect on the available resources to support people with other communications that need primarily roundabout resources. Do you have a view on that? Could other forms of communication be negatively affected by the BSL Bill and, if so, in what way? I think that all of the responses that people have given earlier in the day have indicated that there is a very clear understanding and appreciation and recognition that resources are limited and that they will always be limited. The bill, as it is framed, does not demand that any particular level or quantity or sum of resources become available. It simply says that from the available resources may we please ensure that there is a focus when necessary on BSL. The other thing that I think is absolutely critical is that the community is saying to you—I think that Avril articulated it very clearly earlier on today—that it is a willing partner in working closely with Government and with COSLA and with all of the relevant authorities to manage those expectations and use the resources appropriately. It is not asking for a lion's share of resources, it is not asking for anything disproportionate, simply to make sure that what is available is used effectively and is used in ways that the community believes will be of benefit. Perhaps I could use a further example. To go back to the Gaelic comparison, which I think is vital within this context, the Scottish Parliament has already recognised that Gaelic is part of the rich cultural heritage of this country, and we should do likewise with British Sign Language. They are comparable in this way. There have been quite a lot of resources that are given to Gaelic quite rightly in terms of television, other services, provisions and programmes, and one could just say, look, it is only fair. We do not expect things tomorrow, we understand that this is a process. The deaf community has waited, like I said, this long, so from our point of view in Scotland, of course there will be actual resources required, but let us think about this positively and cooperatively more strategically so that you have true partnership between community, government and service providers. The legislation that exists, this new bill is not going to put very onerous financial responsibilities. What it might do is just give clarity and focus in a centralised way so that the systems that we have already in place are better co-ordinated and the resources that we have are better spent and focused. I do not think that it will have a detrimental effect on other provisions. I think that it will be positive for them, because as we raise awareness of deafness, generally it will have a positive effect on other forms of deafness, for example lips reading, deafblind communication and so on. I think that it will generally raise awareness and benefit other members of the deaf communities. Can I just make one quick addition before we move to Professor Dunbar? The British Government in 2003 considered this issue of British Sign Language. They decided not to enshrine it in legislation at that time. They did give it a recognition. We were delighted at the time, but nothing has actually happened since then. There was a small pool of money and a tokenistic recognition, and a great deal of disappointment in the community stemming from that. We are sitting here 12 years later. If you are talking about government expenditure and you compare it, it has been about £5 million across the whole of the UK since then. It has not been well done or well co-ordinated, and that is because there was no true involvement of community in that and no real commitment. I do not know if you are probably aware by now that there is the spit the dummy campaign, which has been set up as a reaction to the fact that, I think that it was a decade after the legislation that nothing had really been happened, but what the difficulty has been given is these little tokenistic sweeteners to pacify them and to shut us up in a sense. I would hate to see a replication of that here, where a small amount of money is given directly but does not have a big effect. We have stated that we are willing to work with government and services to make more cost-effective, centralised, smart, strategic ways of meeting our needs. Thank you. I belong to Canada originally, and in Canada they are accustomed to bilingualism at a national level. Many of the arguments used when parliaments bring in laws on additional languages, the argument is about extra cost and the effect of those costs on other services. In Canada, and to an extent in Scotland, there is some additional cost involved in bilingualism in the first place, but that is for historical reasons. There was never services or training here previously, but with a passage of time, those costs are reduced, as well as that when public bodies get accustomed to providing services in another language. It is much easier to do that with additional languages. For example, in Toronto, where I was born, bilingualism at a national level took an effect on the development of additional languages. It is a multicultural city, many languages spoken, but there are more and more services available through other languages because people in public bodies do not look on multi-language services as something wrong or causing problems. As we develop our use of languages and being accustomed to languages in Scotland, we are more likely to offer those services without doubling the costs as we anticipate for additional services for other language communities. Can I pick up Professor Nebaron's statement? As an aside, I represent the Parliament in Brussels, on the Committee of the Regions. I spend quite a lot of time in Brussels using headphones and translation services. One of the big arguments in Brussels every time I go there is about the vast cost of translation. No point has it seemed to have reduced in any way whatsoever. In fact, one of the arguments in those times of austerity is about the amount of money that is spent as part of the budget on translation services and interpretation. Are you really saying that realistically this could be kept to a minimal cost and effectively would reduce over time? That is not what I see when I go to Brussels. In Brussels, the costs are associated with translation of European acts, translation services in many languages for parliamentarians, for Europeans, for people in the commission, etc. That is a little different to providing services to the community. For example, education. People talk about additional costs of garlic medium education, but if you were looking at garlic medium education differently, we are not talking about costing extra money on gang, but on education, it is just through the medium of a different language. That is true about many other services. For example, health services. When somebody needs services through another language, they get it. They get the same service, but through the medium of another language. There are costs associated with the training of people with skills to deliver the services, but there is not the same sort of multi-cost as is the case with translation of parliamentary acts, etc. I do not think that that would be at the top of the community's priorities in relation to British Sign Language. I am sorry, Professor Tom. We have heard a lot and there is a lot in the evidence about concerns about the cost of interpreting. One of the beauties of the bill, as it is specified, is that it does refer us or encourages us to think both about access to services, which might, for example, mean the use of interpreters, but also about promotion of the language. On the promotion side, we can do an awful lot more than we have been doing, which will mean that the costs of interpreting do not have to escalate. The rationale for that is the one that the deaf community has consistently articulated generation after generation, and that is, rather than using interpreters, we would wish to have services provided to us directly in BSL, preferably by other people who are members of the signing community themselves. So, if promotion begins with educating families in using sign language so that deaf children have the best possible start from the home with their families, then those deaf children have the best chance to grow up to be highly competent skilled professionals like Clark and Carly and Avril, and you have heard and seen the quality of the evidence that they have given you. I think that it is very clear that it is perfectly possible to imagine a deaf community that is making that kind of contribution to Scottish society across the board. It starts with the promotion and the access issues will need to be maintained, but they will stay in their place. Thank you. First, I will finish on James. James had to leave. The question that he was asking other panel members whether the bill should include a specific reference to the needs of deaf blind BSL users. If so, in what way do you have an opinion on that? I think that it is obviously a very important issue. I have many friends and colleagues that are in fact deaf blind. We want to be very clear that when we use the expression deaf blind, there is a difference between deaf blind and blind deaf. We talk about deaf blind people who belong to our community and who have lost their sight. The blind deaf people are those that were referred to by the second panel of going up with English and then losing their hearing. Those two groups are very distinct, in fact almost opposite needs. You can imagine somebody who grows up with perfectly good sight and loses their sight for a number of different health reasons, the most prevalent in our community being Usher syndrome. About 6 per cent of the deaf community have this retinitis pigmentosa plus deafness syndrome. That is a substantial number. They already use sign language and encounter difficulties later and need tactile hands-on on a number of different communication issues. It is essential that the bill addresses them as equal participants in all of this. Sassily also has a group of deaf blind interpreters. We feel very strongly that that is part of our community. People who can communicate using hands-on signing and manual are an equal part of our community and we work in partnership with them. Carly, you spoke in your evidence about how the second panel spoke about disability and the disabled, rather than seeing it as a language issue. Professor Dumbbar spoke about the culture aspects of it. Do you think that the bill will go a long way to putting BSL as a language rather than a disability issue? I believe that it will really change attitudes of people generally who know very little about BSL in society. At the moment, people learning BSL are perhaps meeting a deaf person for the very first time. They are being able to learn the language and they do not have that mind view. They think that it is a disability first. I believe that once BSL becomes much more widespread and people learn the language earlier and at a younger age, it will influence the attitudes of people. People will see BSL as a language rather than a way of communicating and not just as a disability tool. It is very separate for us. Our hearing peers help us to make a sign, but in general society we feel that it is very separate. We heard this morning—you heard earlier this morning—that the deaf community does not accept this disability label and sees us as a linguistic minority or community. However, there does not need to be an either or in there. Clearly, we are not disabled. We understand that we cannot hear and that provides barriers in terms of how we access society, but it is the secondary issue to us. The bill recognises that we put our language identity and culture first. We accept our disability in society, but it is important that what the bill does is put the language first and that is right. That recognises our linguistic minority identity. That is why you have a lot of evidence and submissions on Facebook from deaf people who really recognise that that is important for us. I am going to have to ask committee members and panellists to try and be brief if at all possible. I would like to explore the effectiveness of the Gaelic Language Act in promoting Gaelic. Are there any useful lessons learned that could be included in the BSL bill? I think that there are lessons to be learned from the Gaelic Language Act and putting it into effect. In many ways, it is a little early to be certain about the effect of the act. It came out in 2006. The first plans were made in 2007-2008, so the history of the act is relatively short. I think that the effect that the plans and the act had on education are particularly relevant. Education about Gaelic and education in Gaelic are very important. That is very important in promoting Gaelic and the British Sign Language. I think that, as we can see in this Parliament through signage and advertisements, Gaelic is much more visible. Because of that, people know about the language exist that it is spoken. There is a better identity and acceptance in Scotland that there is a multicultural community in Scotland and a living community. I think that those things are more important. I do not think that enough stress was put on services through the meeting of Gaelic. In my opinion, there is a little too much emphasis on translation, annual reports and things like that. Things that are important without doubt to raise the status of the language. However, if there had been more emphasis on services for the people who use Gaelic, that is very important. That is where I would have put the priority. From the evidence that we heard today and from the written evidence, that is also very important. It has raised awareness and understanding in the community about the language and the culture. Education in Gaelic and also learners of the language and also services, how we can deliver better services in the language. That is very important to our community. I am sure that you are all very familiar with the Martin Luther King speech, We Have a Dream. I will tell you now that, like every other human being, we have dreams in this regard. In terms of what Professor Dunbar was talking about services and what is going on in television and so on and so forth, there is actually some British Sign Language provision in television. There are some aspects of cultural programming, such as the name of a television programme, not the report, by the way, there are two different sea hears. That has been going since 1981, one of the longest standing community programmes in the world in existence, where other programmes come and go. This flagship of the BBC has been widely recognised as an essential service. We pay the same television licence as everybody else, so it is quite right that we expect perhaps not equity of service, but it is only half an hour a week and only for 20 weeks a year. However, it is vital, because it is the cultural expression of deaf people that allows us to identify with the cultural institutions and artefacts, celebrate our life, our language, our culture, not be sad, not be hidden in the corner and depressed as disabled people, to celebrate and enjoy our deaf heart, our theatre, our poems, all those things that we can contribute and add to the multicultural life in Britain. In 1989, again, to congratulate the BBC, it set up a programme to allow people to learn sign language. Instead of looking at these courses, we know that people in Britain struggle to learn French and German everywhere, but with an accompanying book and a programme, they had a really popular programme. We have such a beautiful, vibrant, exciting language to learn. We could have seen the floodgates open, I suppose, and in fact the kind of did as a result of that programme, but in a positive, in a progressive way. It was the responsibility of the deaf community to respond to that, and we did respond to that by training British Sign Language tutors to meet this hugely explosive need. Simple individuals, Princess Diana, was a great advocate and ambassador for British Sign Language by being the patron of the British Deaf Association. She raised the profile of our language because she could sign a little bit and provided such a great role model. That encouraged even more people to come to our community. It promoted BSL in the most wonderful way. We have talked about existing legislation and adding to it and perhaps what is working and what is not working. With the broadcasting act, there is a 100 per cent requirement for capturing, which is very important for that huge, hearing-impaired, hard-of-hearing community whose first language is English. However, for people who do not access the world through English, the deaf community is very much struggled. We have in-vision interpreters, and that was part of the legislation giving us 5 per cent of all television programmes across all channels. When you work that out, that is 94 hours a week, which is good and positive in its own right. Do you know when those programmes are broadcast at 2, 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning? It is not highly visible, it is not celebrating the language or putting it out there, so unless you are a deaf insomniac, you are not going to be taking advantage of that. The education issue is the most important. Obviously, we would love to see it. I have a dream of a BSL channel, but it might not be a reality. However, I would like to get up at 7 o'clock in the morning just like my hearing counterparts and access what is going on in the world—home affairs, foreign affairs—to get my access directly through sign language, and then go to work at 9 o'clock. I would like my kids to be able to access children's programming or educational programming to have that suite of services available in a very cost-effective way, allowing leisure programmes and chat shows. Of course, we want that kind of equity, we have those kinds of needs, but the cultural life of deaf people is to be celebrated. It is a dream, but it is actually an achievable dream over time. I really am going to have to move on, because we have enough questions to get through, and we have virtually no time at all, Gordon. I want to ask you about the content of BSL plans, similar to the questions that I asked to the two previous panels. What should be included in both national and authority plans in order that the plans can be effective? Should there be some detail on the content of plans that are included in the bill? To take the second question first, I think that the way that the bill is constructed is entirely appropriate, because we do not want to prejudge what the climate might be, what resources might be available, what the priorities might be for successive Governments. The bill has constructed sets of framework, and it gives us an opportunity to take the priorities of the day, and that is as it should be. I do not think that there is any strong lobby asking for more detail of the plans to be put onto the face of the bill. The key thing about the nature of the planning process is that it is a participatory process. I was delighted to see the one Scotland work programme for the Scottish Government referring quite clearly to Government paragraph 238. We want to draw more people more deeply into the way that decisions that matter to them are taken. We want Scotland to be an open and truly engaging country where the creativity and wisdom of all its people help to shape our future. That is exactly what the deaf community is asking you for. A planning process that affords the BSL using community the opportunity to make that kind of contribution to engage in civic activism in exactly the kind of way that the programme is anticipated to achieve is precisely what the community is talking about. I think all of this put some of the discussion earlier in the day in a very different light. As soon as we start talking about comparison between BSL and Gallic, we are a long, long way away from asking questions about disability and resources around disability. Nobody, for example, asks can we afford to support Gallic because Macaton users will be disadvantaged. I think that that gives us a clear idea about being in different territory altogether as soon as we start seeing BSL use as a linguistic minority. I would say then that we are also encouraged to recognise that we are not talking about deaf people's needs. Do not do this because deaf people need you to do it. Do it because Scotland wants it, because Scotland will be a better nation for me. I could say a word or two about the Gallic Language Act. It is somewhat similar to this bill. There is not a lot in the Gallic Language Act about the substance of plans, but there are two things in this bill that are very important. I think that even ahead of the Gallic Act, firstly, the bill says that public bodies should seek advice, consult with users of the language, and I think that that is very important. I think that advice is good, but it is also a longer-lasting consultation. The bill also tries to fit in the national plans with the public bodies plans. I think that that link is very important to under the Gallic Act. The Board of Gallic has the power to issue guidance to public authorities, and they have done that. I think that that would also have been useful for public bodies, since they are not very sure about what kind of plans to prepare. I think that some guidance on that at a national level would be useful after the Act comes into effect. I think that the two principles advise and consultation is very important to link the planning at a national level and at a local level. You have heard all the questions from the previous panels, and this is probably going to come as a huge surprise. The issue in the bill in relation to a minister with specific responsibility for BSL will obviously be aware that the Scottish Government has expressed some reservations seeing that more as an issue of collective responsibility, albeit an issue that would sit within a portfolio and therefore fall to a particular minister to drive forward. I would be interested if you have any firm views either way. If it is a minister responsible, what the specific duties on that minister would be. In addition, the idea of a national advisory group is made up of ministers, local authorities, other service providers and service users. I think that, within the BSL community, there is a firm view that the majority of that group should be made up of service users. Again, it would be helpful if we could have your views on the make-up of that, the desirability of such a group. Sassley does agree with the view that we need to have an advisory group and the majority of BSL users within that group. The regions of Scotland are very diverse. Between north and south, the central belt is very different. North of Scotland is much more rural and has different needs and services. You need to be able to include people from the regions that can express those different needs within the advisory group. The lead minister should be there. He should be someone who is accountable who can take the work forward and cascade it down to different ministers and departments. He should also have a strong understanding of BSL in his work. It should not be an afterthought. The minister should be taking the lead on that and then cascading it down to others. We do not want it to be an afterthought for that minister. We want the minister to be proactive in making sure that things happen as a result of the act. Feedback from the advisory board is really important in that whole process. Could I, as the MSP for Orkney, please welcome the fact that that expression of the regional diversity is being explicitly set out? In terms of the ministerial responsibility, I think that one of the ideas from the previous panel was that we have a minister for languages at the moment, including the Gallic language. Is this something that you would see comfortably sitting within that remit, or does it need to be more explicitly drawn out? First of all, I strongly support what Carly says about recognising the regional diversity of this country. Your question is should it be one single minister or should it be cross-department responsibility? I think that you have already identified that if there isn't one single minister and you put it across all the departments, the level of expertise, knowledge and background between those departments is going to vary wildly so that one department may well be addressing the needs very well and others very much not doing that case. You can see the pitfalls and the potential failures in that system, whereas if you have one department or a minister ultimately accountable being supported with a clear remit by an advisory group with expertise, we would see that as the best way of working. The conversations that have been happening in the lead-up to the bill have been broadly clear that the community is quite relaxed about the Scottish Government's position that there is a shared responsibility. That is the way that it needs to be. Equally, as you say, it will be slightly absurd having recognised that there is a particular linguistic minority if the minister who is responsible for languages did not have some kind of role or position in championing the language, if you like. The only other thing I would say about the advisory panel and, of course, there will be a lot of conversation to be had if the bill is successful about the exact composition of that panel and so on. I don't think it needs to be decided today or in the immediate future, but I would just say that, of course, we will pick you up if I may on the terminology talking about deaf people being part of that panel as service users. Their contribution to that panel is a great deal broader than that of service users. If we think of deaf people as service users only, then we are fixating on the access issues and losing the focus on promotion and the contribution that the community can make to society in Scotland. I took my reprimand in the subject, which is intended. Well, it's not usual, but it's kind of you to do. Can I go back to Professor Dambardo? Obviously, you are well aware of the process that was undertaken when we went through the Gallic Language Bill and the introduction of the act. From that experience, can you give us some information and background knowledge about how the introduction of plans was introduced, how the development of those plans was a particularly onerous process on bodies to produce plans and, in relation to what we have just discussed about ministerial responsibility and national advisory boards, etc? I just wondered if you could give us some background with your experience in the Gallic issue. Perhaps I should start with the ministerial responsibility for the language. We have had a minister since 1999, since the first day that the Scottish Parliament was created, responsibility for Gallic. Now he has responsibility for Scotland's languages. I think that it's important that someone has responsibility ministerially within government for this. It's important. I think that Gallic and the Gallic community have been very fortunate with the ministers. They have had Alasdor Allan is very familiar with the language, is familiar with the issues concerning the means and the needs of Gallic and other languages. As what he learns in relation to policy and putting policy into effect for Gallic would be very useful in relation to policy for other languages. I think that it has been important to Gallic that there was a minister in government with specific responsibility for Gallic matters. In relation to plans, I think that the plans have been successful. Board and Gallic has worked closely with public bodies and in addition to just asking them to prepare plans, the board gives advice and support to public bodies and I think that's important. Since there won't be a board or an equivalent body under this bill, I think that the government should think about how they will consult and keep in touch with people in relation to advice and guidance. I think that the advice that Board and Gallic have given has been useful and some of the doubts that were expressed by some public bodies have been much reduced now with the knowledge that they have of the process as a consequence of the support that they get from the Government and also from the Board. I think that a system of advice and guidance to public bodies is very important in reducing some of the doubts that they may have and some of the difficulties that they may envisage with those responsibilities. To finish us off this morning, it takes up from a point just raised by Professor Dunbar on consultation. The Scottish Government has suggested that the BSL national advisory group can undertake collective consultation on authority plans for a number of reasons, not least because it's slightly concerned to think about pressure put on individuals and groups to provide advice and review those plans. What are the panel's views on that suggestion? On the suggestion of statements? No, on collective consultation. Well, as I've indicated, I think there is a spirit abroad in the country as a whole of consultation and I think it was shown very clearly and I think the country as a whole is very proud of the 85% turnout in the referendum last year. This is a country that values that spirit of consultation and I think that's what we're looking to take forward. I think the key thing to add here is that we all enter the process looking for a long-term response to these kinds of issues. These are not things that can be addressed in the short term. We've had plenty of evidence to show that attempts to do so have been unsuccessful one way or another. So it is an incremental process. It is a process of continuous improvement and a process where the community is very keen to engage and participate. I think perhaps the key thing to bear in mind is that contrary to some of the evidence again that we've heard earlier today, I invite you to review the evidence that's been submitted to the committee to date and ask you whether you find very many instances in there in which deaf people themselves describe the services available to them as exemplary. We heard earlier on that exemplary services were out there, so do deaf people tell you that the services are exemplary? I don't think so very often, so there is a process of continuous improvement that the community is looking for, but it enters into that willingly and in a spirit of partnership. That may be true, Professor Turner, what you say about exemplary services, but I have to say that my experience is that not many people come to me about exemplary services as an MSP across the board, so that may not be the case that we get that end of the spectrum. Just one final question to the panel, and it's a fairly straightforward one to ask the others. It's about whether they believe that there are advantages in moving to either a five or a seven year cycle for the national plan, as opposed to the one that's currently laid out in the bill. At the moment, public bodies are under an obligation, who are under an obligation to provide a garlic language plan will renew that every five years, and I think that's reasonable. It takes a bit of time to devise a plan then to put it into effect, and I think it's important that a sufficient amount of time is allowed, especially in relation to language development. It's a kind of complicated matter. It's not easy to put into effect these things quickly, especially when it comes to training and education. It does take time, and I think it's important to allow sufficient time to the public bodies to put their plans into effect. At the same time, I think that if the time is too long, it's likely that people are likely to leave things undone for some time, so that's the danger in having a plan that is too long in cycle. I think that five years is a reasonable period of time that gives them sufficient time to put their plans into effect and to review what they have done. That's also very important. They must know whether they're doing under the plans is succeeding, some things might be successful, others maybe not so, and it's quite difficult to discover that if the period of time is too short. I think that it's a good idea to give them sufficient time before the next one comes on board. I agree with Professor Dunbar, but I think that we have to get the view of deaf people for too long. We've been sidelines, we've been marginalised and we haven't been involved in the process for so long for parliamentary issues, council issues and so on. I think that we need to give deaf people time to make that adjustment in their own mindset—a cultural change, if you like, and an attitudinal change. Maybe extending that time would be beneficial to do it in phases, to have a phased approach to it, rather than rushing things through, because that might lead to the whole process breaking down. I would recommend a more measured approach for sure. I'd just like to re-emphasise what Carly said. It's a fair point to be made. Five or seven years and appropriate time frame—it's difficult to say at this point in time. I think that the Gaelic experience is instructive and informative. In our discussions, when you think about five years, you think that it's quite a long time, isn't it? Especially in an individual's lifespan. However, there are some long-term goals and aspirations that we would like to see expressed. I think that because of the existing legislation that we've talked about before, we're not starting from a point of the ground up. The deaf community does have a slightly different experience from the Gaelic experience in some ways. Our access to core police health services is very sporadic, piecemeal and not. It's not uniform. I think that Carly's idea of a phased process might work better, whereby in some areas, you can imagine, changes in education would take much longer than face-to-face changes in social services on a local level. It's about what's workable. We're prepared, as the deaf community, to work with you and to be a lot more complex and not see it as a black and white issue—a lot more grey in there that's to be discussed. Thank you for coming along. I was going to say this morning, but it's now this afternoon. Thank you very much for your time and for your evidence this morning. We've obviously got a lot of things to consider when we're looking at the bill, but just for everybody's information, our next consideration of the BSL bill will be on 17 March, when we will take evidence from the Scottish Government and from the member in charge of the bill, Mark Griffin. That's 17 March for the next evidence session on the BSL bill. I will close the meeting.