231124CNPABdPaper4GaelicLanguagePlanConsultation

Form­al Board Paper 4 24 Novem­ber 2023 Page 1 of 5

For decision Title: Con­sulta­tion on Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan 2024 – 28 Pre­pared by: Olly Dav­ies, Head of Communications

Pur­pose This paper out­lines the Park Authority’s pro­posed approach to a six-week con­sulta­tion on our new Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan 2024 – 28.

Recom­mend­a­tions The board is asked to:

a) Review our pro­posed stake­hold­er engage­ment approach and agree that the con­sulta­tion can start w/​c 15 Janu­ary 2024 for a peri­od of six weeks.

Back­ground

1. The Gael­ic Lan­guage (Scot­land) Act 2005 was passed by the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment with a view to secur­ing the status of the Gael­ic lan­guage as an offi­cial lan­guage of Scot­land, com­mand­ing equal respect to the Eng­lish language.

2. One of the key fea­tures of the 2005 Act is the pro­vi­sion enabling Bòrd na Gàidh­lig to require a pub­lic author­ity to pre­pare a Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan. This pro­vi­sion was designed to ensure that the pub­lic sec­tor in Scot­land plays its part in cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able future for Gael­ic by rais­ing the status and pro­file of the lan­guage and cre­at­ing prac­tic­al oppor­tun­it­ies for its use.

3. The Park Author­ity is required to pro­duce a new Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan every five years with­in the frame­work of the Gael­ic Lan­guage (Scot­land) Act 2005 and in line with the Nation­al Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan 2023 – 28. It should set out how we will use Gael­ic in the oper­a­tion of our func­tions, how we will enable the use of Gael­ic when com­mu­nic­at­ing with the pub­lic and key part­ners, and how we will pro­mote and devel­op Gaelic.

Page 2 of 5

1. The Park Authority’s draft Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan is being pre­pared in accord­ance with stat­utory cri­ter­ia set out in the Act and has regard to the Nation­al Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan and the Guid­ance on the Devel­op­ment of Gael­ic Lan­guage Plans.

About our Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan

1. The Park Author­ity recog­nises that Gael­ic is an integ­ral part of Scot­land and the Nation­al Park’s her­it­age, iden­tity and cul­tur­al life. We are com­mit­ted to the object­ives set out in the Nation­al Plan for Gael­ic – which is recog­nised in our Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan under object­ive B8 – and have put in place the neces­sary struc­tures and ini­ti­at­ives to ensure that Gael­ic has a sus­tain­able future in Scot­land and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

2. We recog­nise that the pos­i­tion of Gael­ic is extremely fra­gile and, if Gael­ic is to be revital­ised as a liv­ing lan­guage in Scot­land, a con­cer­ted effort on the part of gov­ern­ment, the pub­lic and private sec­tors, com­munity organ­isa­tions and indi­vidu­al speak­ers is required to:

• Enhance the status of Gaelic.
• Pro­mote the acquis­i­tion and learn­ing of Gaelic.
• Encour­age the increased use of Gaelic.

1. A draft Nation­al Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan was pub­lished by Bòrd na Gàidh­lig on 27 April 2022 and con­sul­ted on for a three-month peri­od. Over 250 responses were received to help shape the final draft (see this page for a sum­mary) but, at the time of writ­ing, no firm date has been set for pub­lish­ing the com­pleted plan.

2. Non­ethe­less, through ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tions with the Bòrd, we will make every effort to align our new Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan with the sub­stant­ive aims of the new nation­al strategy and, fol­low­ing detailed dis­cus­sions with their Chief Exec­ut­ive, have agreed the fol­low­ing three stra­tegic aims:

• Increas­ing the use of Gael­ic with­in our organ­isa­tion and encour­aging more people to use Gael­ic, more often when they inter­act with us.
• Increas­ing the oppor­tun­ity for people to learn Gael­ic as part of our day-to-day operations.

Page 3 of 5

• Pro­mot­ing a pos­it­ive image of Gael­ic whenev­er we can as part of our day-to- day oper­a­tions as an organisation.

1. The Bòrd also set a series of cor­por­ate ser­vice aims around ​‘status’ (cov­er­ing logo, brand and sig­nage), ​‘com­mu­nic­at­ing with the pub­lic’, ​‘inform­a­tion’ (news releases, social media, pub­lic­a­tions, web­sites etc), ​‘staff’ (recruit­ment, induc­tions, train­ing etc) and ​‘Gael­ic lan­guage cor­pus’ (includ­ing using Gael­ic place names). Taken togeth­er with the above stra­tegic pri­or­it­ies, these will form the core struc­ture of our new Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan 2024 – 28.

2. Along­side the nation­al strategy, a new Gael­ic Lan­guage and Cul­ture Strategy is also cur­rently being developed, led by Vis­itScot­land. The Park Author­ity is one of over 40 organ­isa­tions that has been involved in the early con­sulta­tion stages of this plan and we will ensure that both this strategy and our own Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan align as they develop.

Con­sulta­tion on the new Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan

1. Sec­tion 3(6) of the 2005 Act requires pub­lic author­it­ies to con­sult per­sons appear­ing to them to have an interest in the devel­op­ment of their Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan. To com­ply with these stat­utory require­ments, Bòrd na Gàidh­lig recom­mends that a pub­lic con­sulta­tion exer­cise be under­taken, with the fol­low­ing con­sidered best practice:

• A con­sulta­tion peri­od of between six and 12 weeks to ensure that mem­bers of the pub­lic have suf­fi­cient time and oppor­tun­ity to make their views known. The Park Author­ity is pro­pos­ing a six-week con­sulta­tion, begin­ning w/​c 15 Janu­ary 2024.
• A draft of the plan pub­lished bilin­gually in Gael­ic and Eng­lish with hard cop­ies avail­able. An elec­tron­ic copy should be made access­ible in a prom­in­ent place on the authority’s web­site. The Park Author­ity will pub­lish both Eng­lish and Gael­ic ver­sions of the draft plan and make them avail­able as a hard copy, online via our web­site and in access­ible Word doc­u­ment format.
• A bilin­gual press release announ­cing the begin­ning of the con­sulta­tion pro­cess, brought to the atten­tion of all rel­ev­ant media out­lets. The pub­lic author­ity should

Page 4 of 5

• endeav­our to make avail­able a Gael­ic-speak­er to con­duct media inter­views with Gael­ic media. We will issue a media release in both Eng­lish and Gael­ic announ­cing the start of the con­sulta­tion. Unfor­tu­nately, we are not aware of any flu­ent Gael­ic speak­er on staff or on the board so will not be able to provide a spokes­per­son in Gael­ic on this occasion.
• Oth­er chan­nels for con­sult­ing the pub­lic may include loc­al radio sta­tions, pla­cing cop­ies of the draft plan in their loc­al offices, in lib­rar­ies and health centres, issu­ing leaf­lets, using notice­boards, and using elec­tron­ic means of com­mu­nic­a­tions. A par­tic­u­larly effect­ive way of rais­ing the pro­file of the con­sulta­tion is to include a bilin­gual strap­line in e‑mails sent by employ­ees and officers of the pub­lic body noti­fy­ing recip­i­ents of the exist­ence of the draft plan. As with any form­al engage­ment pro­cess, we will pro­mote the con­sulta­tion via a range of on- and off­line chan­nels, includ­ing our web­site, social media, press, pub­lic­a­tions and newsletters.
• A pro­gramme of pub­lic meet­ings, widely advert­ised with the out­comes recor­ded. Giv­en the rel­at­ively low num­ber of Gael­ic speak­ers in the Nation­al Park (less than 2% of the pop­u­la­tion) we do not believe that face-to-face pub­lic meet­ings will be the most effi­cient way of gath­er­ing stake­hold­er views on the plan. We will, how­ever, explore the pos­sib­il­ity of online ses­sions to reach a wider audi­ence and make staff mem­bers avail­able for phone / in-per­son chats upon request.

Pro­posed con­sulta­tion questions

1. Build­ing upon our con­ver­sa­tions with Bòrd na Gàidh­lig and the set of ques­tions we asked five years ago, we have pre­pared the fol­low­ing draft ques­tions for the con­sulta­tion peri­od. These will be accom­pan­ied with our stand­ard demo­graph­ic ques­tions and made avail­able in a vari­ety of on- and off­line formats:

• Would you like to respond in Eng­lish or Gaelic?
• Are you respond­ing as a: res­id­ent / busi­ness – tour­ism / busi­ness non tour­ism / vis­it­or / mem­ber of a Gael­ic organ­isa­tion / com­munity rep­res­ent­at­ive / pupil at a Gael­ic medi­um edu­ca­tion school / teach­er at a Gael­ic medi­um edu­ca­tion school /

Page 5 of 5

stu­dent or adult learn­ing Gael­ic / oth­er pub­lic sec­tor organ­isa­tion / staff or board mem­ber / oth­er (please specify)?

• How would you describe your Gael­ic know­ledge / fluency?
• We have iden­ti­fied three high-level aims for our new Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan. To what extent to you agree or dis­agree that these aims are the right pri­or­it­ies for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority?
• To what extent do you agree or dis­agree that our draft Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan helps safe­guard and pro­mote Gael­ic lan­guage and culture?
• To what extent do you agree or dis­agree that our draft Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan is clear and easy to understand?
• Do you have any sug­ges­tions on how we could improve our Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan?
• Would you be inter­ested in help­ing take for­ward any aspects of the Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan (please specify)?
• Is there any­thing else you would like to share about our draft Gael­ic Lan­guage Plan?

Budget implic­a­tions

1. In order to ensure that the con­sulta­tion reaches as broad and rep­res­ent­at­ive an audi­ence as pos­sible, we set aside a max­im­um budget of £5,000 in the ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ budget to sup­port our com­mu­nic­a­tions efforts. How­ever, as many of the chan­nels we intend to use (web­sites, pub­lic­a­tions, PR etc) are already firmly estab­lished, it is unlikely that the full amount will be required.