ALLIANCE responds to call for views on Scottish Parliament BSL Plan
- Area of Work: Policy and Research, Scottish Sensory Hub
- Type: News Item
- Published: 20th August 2024
The ALLIANCE have published their response to the Scottish Parliament BSL Plan 2024-2030
The response sets out the ALLIANCE’s views on the Scottish Parliament’s proposed BSL Plan 2024-2030.
In July, the Scottish Parliament issued a call for views on their draft BSL Plan, and shared 21 actions intended to demonstrate their commitment to improving access to parliamentary information and services for BSL users.
The ALLIANCE response welcomed action to retain BSL interpretation of First Minister’s Questions and parliamentary business directly relating to Deaf and Deafblind people is welcome, and the commitment to retaining open dialogue with people who are Deaf or Deafblind. However, we suggest that inclusive communication practices should be followed across all items of parliamentary business to ensure Deaf and Deafblind people are fully included within civic life – not only those areas deemed to be “directly related” to Deafness or Deafblindness. We also highlighted the importance of broader inclusive communication practices, to support BSL users with a range of receptive and productive language skills.
The Scottish Parliament has an opportunity to set a benchmark for other listed public bodies under the BSL (Scotland) Act 2015 in this area, in publishing aggregate data from this evaluation work, and demonstrating public accountability and transparency on its inclusive communication practices. We suggest that this data collection, analysis, and publication should include a wider scope, spanning inclusive communication practices as a whole – in line with (and in preparation for) the pending Public Sector Equality Duty on inclusive communication.
Read the full response below.
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