The remit of ‘Bilingual Cardiff’ is to take a lead role in developing a truly bilingual Cardiff where citizens and staff of the City of Cardiff Council can access services and support in either language equally through improved partnership working.
The Bilingual Cardiff team assist the Council in complying with its statutory duty to provide services in both Welsh and English, and includes a comprehensive translation service. As part of the ‘co-operative council’ approach, Bilingual Cardiff will take on an advisory role for other organisations, whilst continuing to actively promote and further raise awareness of the Welsh language across the city through better collaborative working arrangements which in turn will place a downward pressure on costs.
This innovative new approach is about bringing down the barriers between the Welsh and English languages, promoting bilingualism as something completely natural and being equally proud of both official languages here in Cardiff in order to ensure that our vision of an increasingly bilingual Cardiff is realised.
Access to Welsh language services that are equal in terms of quality to those provided in English was established as a legal right for the people of Wales by the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 and the supporting Welsh Language Standards.
The Welsh Language Skills Strategy supports the implementation of the Welsh Language Standards relating to Workforce Planning and Training (Standards 127-135), Recruitment and Appointments (Standards 136-140) and Promotion of the Welsh Language (Standards 151-154).
The purpose of the Strategy is to enable the Council to:
Our vision is to develop a truly bilingual Cardiff. A Cardiff where our citizens can live, work and play, as well as access services and support in Welsh or English equally. A capital city where bilingualism is promoted as something completely natural, and where the Welsh language is protected and nurtured for future generations to use and enjoy.
In compliance with the requirements of the Welsh language standards Cardiff Council implements a five-year strategy to promote and facilitate the use of Welsh. The first Bilingual Cardiff Strategy was published in 2017 and ran until 2022. This is the strategy’s first revision, and it is operational from 2022 to 2027. The Strategy includes a target to increase the number and percentage of Welsh speakers and learners in Cardiff to ensure that Cardiff plays its part in supporting the Welsh Government’s vision of a million Welsh speakers by 2050.
This is a strategy for the city as a whole, not for any one organisation and delivering the strategy will therefore rely on partnership working, between the public, private and education sectors and, most importantly of all, with the people of Cardiff.
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The Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 replaced the Welsh Language Act 1993 and as part of the new legislation, in Wales the Welsh language has equal legal status with English and must not be treated any less favourably. Public bodies no longer need to develop and implement Welsh Language Schemes and must comply with a set of national Welsh Language Standards instead.
The Welsh Language Commissioner issued local authorities with their Compliance Notices on 30th September 2015. This document lists which of the 176 Standards (as listed in full in the Welsh Language Standards Regulations (No.1) 2015) an organisation must comply with, along with any exemptions and their implementation dates.
The City of Cardiff Council has a statutory duty to comply with standards listed along with the compliance date in the “Compliance notice – Section 44 Welsh language (Wales) Measure 2011”, issued by the Welsh Language Commissioner on the 30th of September 2015.