Conwy County Borough Council, like every other Council in Wales, is expected to comply with Welsh Language Standards issued by the Welsh Language Commissioner (which can be seen below).
The Standards aim to:
- provide greater clarity to organizations on their duties on the Welsh language
- provide greater clarity to Welsh speakers about the services they can expect to receive in Welsh
- ensure more consistency of Welsh language services and improve their quality.
The duties which derive from the standards mean that organizations such as the Council, should not treat the Welsh language less favourably than the English language, together with promoting and facilitating the use of the Welsh language (making it easier for people to use their Welsh language skills in everyday life).
The Welsh Standards supersedes the Council's Welsh Language Scheme first approved by the Welsh Language Board on 23rd July, 1997, which was revised on 14th May, 2004 and then on 23rd April 2009.
The Welsh Language Standards are arranged under five main Standards:
- Service Delivery Standards - Focusing on providing services. Their aim is to promote and facilitate the use of Welsh or to ensure that the Welsh language is not treated less favourably than the English language in service provision.
- Policy Making Standards - These Standards ask Officers to consider the effect that their policy making decisions may have on people's opportunities to use Welsh and the guiding principle not to treat the Welsh language less favourably than the English language.
- Operational Standards - These Standards deal with the way in which the Council use Welsh internally and promotes the concept of a bilingual workplace, affording some rights to employees in the context of receiving their HR Service in their language of choice.
- Promotion Standards - These Standards ask organisations to adopt a promotion strategy setting out how the Local Authority proposes to promote and facilitate the use of Welsh more widely within the communities it serves, and will involve some partnership work.
- Record Keeping Standards - These Standards deal with data recording systems relating to the other Standards.
Welsh Language Complaints
If you would like to make a complaint relating to the council’s compliance with the Welsh Language Standards or a failure on the Council’s part to provide a bilingual service, please use the Council's complaints procedure on this page.
You also have a right to direct any complaints relating to the Welsh language to the Welsh Language Commissioner.