Summary of consultation responses

Question 3 – Benefits and challenges

Question 3
What, if any, might be the main benefits of the proposed Bill? Do you see any challenges? Please list these.
There were 144 responses to this question, with 104 from individuals and 40 from organisations.
Those advocating the benefits of the proposed Bill highlighted the following—

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  Awareness would be raised, not just for BSL users but of deafness, hearing impairment and cultural issues for the deaf community.
  

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  There might be indirect benefits, such as BSL being used more in the media – the BBC was not one of the public bodies listed, but had taken Gaelic seriously and could similarly provide more material in BSL.
  

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  Deaf BSL users would be recognised as a linguistic minority, not simply as “disabled people”.
  

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  The number of BSL users would increase, so more hearing people would be Deaf and BSL aware, resulting in Deaf BSL users being less marginalised.
  

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  Consistency across public bodies would be provided.
  

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  The numbers of BSL users in Scotland would increase, leading to more interpreters and appropriately qualified teachers of deaf people.
  

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  It could assist in providing opportunities for other children to learn BSL, improving access to BSL in the school curriculum and helping facilitate communication and an inclusive environment for all children.
  

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  It would encourage a national review of current methods of communication and services provided.
  

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  Greater availability of BSL interpreters would help avoid issues of confidentiality that arise when family/friends act as interpreters.
  

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  It would support the aims of the Scottish Government for a wealthier and fairer, smarter and healthier Scotland.
  

Individuals responding under the SABH response commented that enhanced communication might result for all, allowing “peer groups of all ages to communicate” (SABH 19) and “benefits … not only be[ing] to deaf people, but those who wish to learn to sign”. (SABH 39)

The SCCYP believed that promoting BSL “as an indigenous language will help Scotland meet its international obligations and increase awareness and understanding of the needs of this group of people, particularly across Scottish public bodies. I believe there will be knock-on benefits …. for instance, a better knowledge of the linguistic rights of Deaf BSL users, leading to better access to information and services and in turn will help to reduce marginalization and isolation”. Similarly, the National Deaf Children’s Society felt that such a Bill would “send a very powerful message to the Deaf community …. that Scotland values the diverse nature of languages used by its people, respects the history and language of its Deaf community and seeks to secure the status of the language used by that community”.
Challenges

A number of possible challenges were identified in implementing the Bill and these included—

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  Since there were few statistics on the numbers of Deaf BSL users and where they lived, this might be used as an argument for not producing plans.
  

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  Complaints from other language groups feeling that their needs required same level of attention.
  

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  The lack of statistics and not being aware of the size and makeup of the Deaf community.
  

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  There was allegedly little movement with Gaelic language plans and the same might happen for BSL action plans.
  

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  Ensuring public bodies did not treat the requirement as another layer of bureaucracy and did only the minimum to implement.
  

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  Qualified teachers of deaf children might be diverted from deaf education to teaching BSL as a modern language to hearing children, limiting the time available for direct support of deaf pupils.
  

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  Standardised training and guidance for professionals and parents around BSL/bilingual debate could remove the ideological barriers to accessing BSL.
  

The British Deaf Association (Scotland) cited potential challenges as including “experts” who “insist that Deaf people should make more effort to integrate within the wider community using speech and listening. BDA Scotland’s response is that improved linguistic skills in a minority language leads to improved skills in a majority language … this Bill is a great opportunity to open up the mainstream community to Deaf people and in doing so, improve their writing and reading skills in English”.

Question 4 – Specific action to promote BSL

Question 4
Do you agree with the case for taking specific action to promote BSL (as opposed to other minority languages)?
Of the 139 responses to this question, 124 (89%) agreed with the proposal to take specific action to promote BSL, two (1.5%) disagreed, and 13 (9.5%) had mixed or other views, in particular, arguing that the promotion of BSL should not be to the detriment of other forms of communication.
Views from those endorsing the proposal included—

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  Specific action was required as BSL was a language under threat.
  

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  BSL users might not have access to a spoken language and BSL was likely to be their sole language, which was not the case for other minority languages.
  

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  Some others used a minority language as their only language but there was effective ESL [English as a second language] provision so they could become fluent in English quickly.
  

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  The small number of BSL interpreters and communicators meant that action was required to increase their numbers.
  

Other respondents had mixed views: while supporting the need for specific action it was felt that—

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  The imposition of a new legal duty on relevant public authorities to produce BSL action plans could be to the detriment of other equality groups.
  

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  There was an equally pressing need to promote and raise awareness of other means of communication.
  

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  It should not be at the expense of other minority languages.
  

In opposing the need for specific action for BSL, East Lothian Council countered that there were many more methods of inclusive communication, not just for deaf people – such as Braille, Moon, symbol systems, pictures, expressive boards, talking mats and IT and it would like to see support for people to use the communication methods that suited them best.

One respondent who attended a Scottish Advisory Group on Deafblindness meeting on the proposed Bill commented that: “I agree with supporting BSL. I would ask as a deafblind person that hands-on BSL and deafblind manual also be promoted”.