Defnyddia dy Gymraeg

A new campaign by the Welsh Language Commissioner is encouraging people to use Welsh in everyday situations as much as possible.

The Defnyddia dy Gymraeg (Use your Welsh) campaign marks the 12^th anniversary of the introduction of the Welsh Language Bill. Since the Welsh Language Standards came into force for public bodies in Wales in 2016, the Council has invested in improving its services for Welsh speakers internally and externally.

To measure the Council’s progress and compliance with the standards, we must produce an Annual Welsh Monitoring Report.

We report on the provision and quality of Welsh language across a range of our communications, including social media, website content, and contact centre phonelines. The Welsh Language Commissioner also undertakes an audit of our services and makes recommendations that the Council’s Equality and Welsh Language Officer, Elyn Hannah, is responsible for overseeing.

The latest report studies our compliance between April 2022, and March 2023.

In this time the Contact Centre took 1,749 calls in Welsh, an increase of 63% from the previous year. The team had also made progress in reducing wait times for Welsh calls, taking the average time down to 257 seconds from 304 seconds since the 2021/22 report.

In 2020, the Council entered a translation contract with Cardiff Council to aid staff in producing bilingual work. Between April 2022 and March 2023, a total of 3,721 documents were translated via the service, totalling 2,939,599 words, an increase of 8% on the previous year.

If you have any queries about how the Welsh Language Standards will affect your work please contact Equality and Welsh Language Officer, Elyn Hannah.

Her Dydd Gwyl Dewi: Welsh in the Workplace

As well as access to the translation service, all employees of the Vale of Glamorgan Council are entitled to free Welsh lessons as part of the Work Welsh scheme.

The organisation recognises the many benefits that come from staff improving their language skills for the organisation, customers, and our communities and so the courses are fully funded.

The programme, delivered by Work Welsh Co-ordinator, Sarian Thomas-Jones, offers diverse, flexible training to employees which forms part of the working week.

By March 2023, 58 Council staff members were enrolled on the Work Welsh scheme, 45 of which were at entry level, 5 at foundation level, 6 at higher level, and 2 at proficiency level. We celebrated the successes of many of these colleagues at a recent award ceremony in the Leaders Office.

At the presentation the group were encouraged to share their experiences about the course with each other and asked why learning the Welsh language was important to them.

Operational Manager for Social Services, Sharon Miller said: “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my Cymraeg Gwaith sessions with Sarian over the past year. She instils a lot of confidence in her learners which makes such a difference when learning a new - and often difficult – language.

“I’ve also bonded with my course mates, forming friendships with people who work across different service areas who I wouldn’t normally cross paths with within my day-to-day work.”

You can hear from more of our learners here: