Finance Committee

So, we'll move then on to our substantive item this morning, and it's to discuss the financial implications of the British Sign Language (Wales) Bill. I'm glad to see we have witnesses with us, and I'd like to ask you, Mark, to introduce yourself and the officials that are with you.

Bore da. Mark Isherwood ydw i.

My name is Mark Isherwood, Member of the Senedd representing north Wales, and I'm the proposer of this private Member's Bill. I'll let my colleagues introduce themselves.

No problem. We'll start with Gareth.

Gareth Rogers. I'm the Bill manager supporting Mark.

Fantastic.

I'm Martin Jennings. I work in the financial scrutiny unit and I've been helping Mark with some of the costings.

Fantastic. Thank you very much. We'll be looking at the Bill this morning and, yes, croeso to this committee. At last week's meeting, we took evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Trefnydd and Chief Whip. We'll now follow on from that session that we had with her and go into some detail with you for an hour or so this morning. I'd like to start by exploring the engagement that you've had with the Welsh Government on the Bill. The Cabinet Secretary said that she'd been discussing with you quite a lot, and your team and her team have been discussing this Bill. From your point of view, what sort of engagement have you had, and what's your experience been of working with Welsh Government officials in the development of the financial implications of this Bill?

Certainly, over several months it's been very constructive. You may recall that when we debated this last year and voted on it in the Chamber, the Welsh Government at that stage said they didn't see the need for it. There was a national campaign run primarily by members of the deaf community to persuade Members across the Chamber why it was so important to them to have this legislation in Wales, and I was pleased to be contacted by the Cabinet Secretary some months later inviting me to a meeting. I had in the meantime, just in conversation with her, mentioned that this Bill was too important to lose and if there had to be compromises rather than lose it altogether, provided that we remain at least as strong, if not stronger, than the legislation in the other parts of the UK, then, 'Let's not kill this; let's have a chat, a discussion.' That led to the compromises, which I'm sure you've identified, particularly replacing the proposal for a commissioner, which was the highest cost item, with the statutory adviser. That then triggered a series of subsequent meetings involving the Cabinet Secretary and her officials, as we discussed in more granular detail some of the other areas where agreement would be required and how we might address that, considering, in the process, legislation—international legislation, in Scotland, England, legislation going through in Northern Ireland currently under an Executive Bill—to get to the point we are now. In the interim, particularly over several months this year, the Senedd team, particularly these gentlemen, have had a constructive working engagement with their opposite numbers in the Welsh Government on many of these matters, including the financial costings attached to it.

Thank you very much, Mark. Just delving into some of that then, the RIA notes that it will be for the Welsh Ministers to determine the content of the national BSL strategy and the guidance, and listed public bodies to determine how their own BSL plans transpire. Given that those costs are unquantified, how representative are the costs in the RIA of the total costs of the legislative proposal that's coming forward?

I think the £3.8 million to £4.1 million identified in the document you referred to is entirely legitimate for the Bill itself, because the Bill itself, as you know, is a framework Bill. It doesn't itself specify the actions that the strategy might direct or that public bodies might include in their plans. There are expectations about what that should include, but it doesn't prescribe what those should be or the further costings associated with that. So, the costings are accurate for what the Bill proposes, but they don't seek to address anything beyond that.

Is there a risk, then, that costs could be much higher, depending on what decisions Welsh Ministers make post this Bill coming forward—so, the unquantified costs there—or are you quite confident that the figures portrayed in the RIA are as accurate as they can be at this point in time?

They're entirely accurate for what the Bill covers, but they cannot and do not seek to identify any additional costs that might incur in consequence of the strategies and plans that the Bill would require.

Did you do any modelling of what that might look like? You've talked about compromises that you've made. Had you done any work on what that might look like, going down the line, or was it beyond the scope of what you were looking at within the development of this Bill?

Not in any great detail. It's a private Member's Bill. Even with the Welsh Government working with us, that was only on what the Bill itself stated. We haven't got the resource to do that level of work. But I don't know if either of you would like to comment on what consideration you might have given.

Yes. We did initial work looking at the other elements of the original proposal, which, again, wouldn't have included these, and then we approached the Scottish Government. We talked to research colleagues in Scotland to see if they had any information on the costs of implementing the Bill, and what's happened in Scotland, but they didn't have anything either. And then, as Mark is saying, it really does need to be left up to the special adviser and the advisory group and the Welsh Government what will be in those plans. We made the point in the impact assessment that it's really important that, at this stage, the expertise goes in to set those strategies and plans, and, at that same time, they set out the costs and the benefits at that point. It would have been very, very difficult with our team and our expertise, and we couldn't really have put expectations for the Welsh Government either at that time.

This framework Bill would be meaningless if the strategies and plans don't identify the actions that need to be taken. They won't necessarily be identical in every public body or in every area or region, because the expectation is that some public bodies will work together, as they have in parts of Scotland, in developing and implementing their plans. But there is a realistic expectation that they will not only look at this as a cost, but as an investment. You will know, as a Member as well as a committee Chair—as I do as a Member and a committee Chair—that colleagues across the parties are regularly highlighting issues around the shortage of BSL interpreters, the shortage of teachers of the deaf, the shortage of allied health professionals, particularly those associated with supporting members of the deaf community or people with sensory loss more widely. Investing in those gaps will ultimately generate savings for statutory services. It is also part of the early prevention and intervention agenda, as well as, more broadly, being a language Bill, which it is. This isn't about a communication system, this is about a language. The deaf community are very keen that the language should be recognised alongside Welsh and English as a language, not just a system.

Of course. You've talked about the benefits in the explanatory memorandum, but those benefits haven't been quantified then into numbers of potential upside, and some of the things that you were talking about there, the preventative, and being able to get an idea of how this Bill would benefit financially, in some sense. Why is that? What has been the difficulty in doing that, or has that been a conscious decision not to try and do it, or was it—? Could you talk me through what the thought behind that was?

We don't have the resource to say exactly how many interpreters we need, up to what level, how many teachers of the deaf we need, but we know people who can, and they're the people who speak to us all regularly. I'm just going to quote a section here from a Welsh Government paper, the Minister's briefing:

'It will be for Welsh Ministers to determine the content and associated costs of the National BSL Strategy and BSL guidance with input from the BSL Adviser and assisting panel. It will be for each of the listed public bodies to determine the content of its own BSL plan, guided by the BSL guidance.'

The purpose of going into some limited detail was to indicate where the priorities should be in the strategy, in the guidance, which will provide the basis for the public bodies' plans and the subsequent reviews by Government and local bodies. And, of course, Ministers will have powers to require changes in local bodies' plans, in which case they'll have to go back to the drawing board, publish a new plan, and review the new plan again, themselves. So, it is a framework Bill. We are not here saying, 'We need x of this, y of that, and it's going to cost this or that amount'. It's saying, 'These are the areas where action is required', and this Bill is intended to put a framework in place to make that happen.

Okay. Thank you very much. I'll bring Sam in at this point. Diolch, Sam.

Thank you, Chair. Good morning, Mark. Thanks for being with us today. I'm very pleased to see this Bill here, and particularly you leading on this as the Member in charge; I'm grateful to your Senedd colleagues as well. Perhaps just briefly, could you just confirm that, currently, the Welsh Government does do some work with regard to BSL, and the Welsh Government currently spends some money of its budget on BSL policy—is that correct?

Yes. They set up a panel, as an offshoot of the disability rights taskforce, which began to look at all of this. In that interim, they were stating they didn't see the need, before recognising there was a need. Many of the people who were already working with me—virtually all of them—became members of that taskforce. They were reporting back to me on what they saw as positives, but also, their concerns about the teeth it had and the ability to actually ensure that the lived deaf voice was heard and acted upon. So, yes, those actions were in place.

Just to be clear, there's currently a cost to the Welsh Government for administering that as it exists today, but it seems, from your paperwork, that the Welsh Government weren't able to provide a calculation of that cost to you. Do you know why the Welsh Government weren't able to inform you of the cost of their current work?

They looked at a number of factors, for example the adviser. They looked at the equivalent adviser for the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015—the cost of recruiting and employing that position. In terms of the assisting panel, they looked at the advisory panels introduced in Scotland and England—albeit on a non-statutory basis, so we're stronger that ours would be statutory. And we looked more widely—. I don't know if you wish to comment on the broader evidence considered.

I suppose it's very much that there's no legislation in place that this work has to be done—and you would have spoken to the Welsh Government officials that we spoke to. We very much focused on what this Bill will change, so that's the administrative requirements in the Bill. At the time we were talking to them, this task and finish group was about to finish. So, at that point, there was very little going forward that we could say, 'This is a cost.' You heard in the evidence session the good news that they've continued that panel. So, you could argue that that now is a status quo cost that is there.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that I think—. Have you had to overestimate some of your costs because there are existing costs within the Welsh Government for delivering some BSL policy? You would think that that work would be absorbed within this Bill. Therefore, the actual cost you're having to present won't be as high because there's already some resource and energy being put into this type of work—clearly not doing what all this Bill will accomplish. But I'm just trying to tease out—. Have you had to overestimate slightly because the Welsh Government haven't been able to inform you of the costs of their existing work? I'm not sure if that's a fair comment.

It's true that we haven't been able to net anything off because we can't say, 'This will no doubt replace some work that the Welsh Government would have been doing.'

We know that a huge chunk of the forecast cost relates to quantifiable upfront costs, such as recruiting and appointing the adviser and the panel, and for the listed public bodies to produce and update their BSL plans. But you're quite right; the intention is that the new infrastructure would pick up and heavy lift the former infrastructure—in many cases, involving some of the same people.

I will make one strong point that after the taskforce was established and they were in direct communication with me—I wasn't advising them; I was being informed—they told the Cabinet Secretary at the time that their participation was conditional on recognition that they did not see this as an alternative to the BSL Bill.

To add to what Mark has just said, when I was looking at the transcript, the Welsh Government officials—or it could have been the Cabinet Secretary—were saying that they are providing a route-map and this will inform the work. So, that does suggest that some of the work they're planning to do over the next 18 months is going to tie in and that's going to be some of the background work. So, I'd agree, there's some netting off there, but we don't know what.

Covering what Mark was saying, the approach we had with the Welsh Government was that they gave us just a couple of pointers of, 'Look in this direction.' We provided estimates, which we then discussed with them, and the same with the Welsh Local Government Association. So, we've provided figures that they've looked at and commented on and they've very helpfully provided us with things like day rates. So, it's been very good working together, but, as the Cabinet Secretary said, these are Mark's costs that they've commented on, rather than the Welsh Government providing costs, which I think is the right approach.

Okay, that's really helpful, thank you very much. And then, Mark, you mentioned, rightly, the tangible costs, potentially, of the BSL adviser role, and you've explained where some of the logic for that has come from. In terms of delivering value for money, could you explain how you think that inclusion of that adviser role will deliver value for money?

As you know, and I indicated earlier, originally, the proposal was for a further commissioner. We know, from the cost of other commissioners, that the cost could have been quite significant, and that was certainly something the Welsh Government were wary of, putting it politely. So, this proposal for the adviser is at a far lower cost, but the function will be critical. This will ensure that a BSL adviser, who must be a BSL speaker themselves, will have direct input into the strategy, into the guidance, and into continuing oversight and engagement, supported by their assisting panel. The intention is, of course, that the assisting panel should also be representative of the deaf community and people with lived experience, as well as those with relevant and associated expertise. So, it's putting checks and balances in place. They can't require the Welsh Government or public bodies to do anything, but they will be in a powerful role. I'm sure that, if they felt that their recommendations and asks were being ridden roughshod over, future committees, future MSs and others in places of influence would know about it, and it would be raised here, be raised in this committee in the future, and no doubt our friends in the media would have an interest in it also.

Thank you. You've already touched on the relationship and helpful sharing of information with the Welsh Government in terms of estimating the administrative support costs for the panel, so I don’t think we need to touch on that point again.

But just moving on to a slightly different area, the national strategy and the preparing of the national strategy, obviously that comes with a cost, it is not just going to happen on its own. You've estimated in your RIA, I believe, that the cost of producing that would be £106,000. This does seem higher than the cost of other national strategies that have been produced for other Bills, whether it's here in Wales or elsewhere in the UK. How confident are you, given the RIA notes, that those national strategies have been prepared for a lower cost elsewhere?

There are complexities involved, such as the need to produce this in three languages, not in two. Could you add to the consideration given on this?

I suppose this again comes back to your earlier question. The Welsh Government would have, for example, looked at the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Bill, and that had an £11,100 administrative cost to produce that strategy. When you look at that, it does seem really low. We looked at the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill, which again seemed a good example. We looked at the British Sign Language (Scotland) Bill and work we have done with Peter Fox on the Food (Wales) Bill.

I think, when you are doing a Member Bill, you are, as we were saying before, almost starting from scratch and assuming nothing has been done beforehand. That way, we set out the pay grades of people we thought would be involved, from director level downwards, and also the additional costs of providing and consulting in BSL. So, we're confident that they seem to be reasonable costs for the entirety of it.

Again, we're not in a position where we can net off against work that may have already be done in the Welsh Government. I think that that might be some of the difference. I think with the violence against women Bill, you'd find later on that they'd say, 'We're going to have this person who will do work in a number of areas', so they have costed the framework a bit differently anyway.

Yes. Thanks, Chair. I guess that the point might be that the estimate of £106,000 seems like the upper end of the potential cost, and it could potentially be less than that if we look at evidence from elsewhere. But I appreciate the point that some of the examples given may have had some pre-baked strategies or work in place that would then reduce the overall cost of being able to deliver those. So, I think that's fair. Thanks, Chair.

Before I bring Mike Hedges in, one of the questions I asked the Cabinet Secretary last week was about this element—and it's more of a wider point on private Members' Bills rather than this Bill in particular—that you have to assume all the costs because that sort of baseline on netting isn't happening. From your experience of going through with this Bill, are there any improvements to the process of engaging with Government, especially around this type of possible overestimation that's happening just because you're having to, that you might want us to consider looking at to make recommendations to future Governments as to how they engage with private Members’ Bills?

Like I mentioned earlier, initially, as you may recall, the Welsh Government said that they didn't see a need for this. It would have been nice if the need was identified sooner, because certainly the community—the deaf community at large and numerous deaf people's organisations—were making very clear the need for this legislation over very many years. So, if we could have started earlier, that would have been of help. But I'm not going to be critical, because the Government did come around, and opened the door and invited me to work with them at the end of 2024. So, that was constructive.

On the resource issues, again, the Cabinet Secretary was very keen to help me to take this forward on the basis that they could accept, but also her officials were concerned about the resource that they had to support a wider Bill than this is and the workload associated even with producing information to support this Bill. But nonetheless, I think that you found them quite open and constructive in responding.

I'm just thinking a little bit more from the financial point of view, that financial transparency of being able to, maybe, drill down into some of the existing costs that are being borne by Welsh Government at the moment from work that they are doing in this field and being able to then cross-reference those with the cost of maybe producing the strategy and being able to say, 'Well, actually, it won't cost 10 times as much as the VAWDASV strategy will, it'll cost less', so that when it comes to a committee like the Finance Committee to look at costs, we're able to have a more accurate view as, if this was a Government Bill, they would have done that.

Well, yes, it would have been wonderful to have, I suppose, more granular financial information. I think it's always better to overestimate and underspend than the other way around. So, as Sam Rowlands indicated, this might prove to be less expensive than the forecast figures. But in terms of the possible elements, the hoped-for elements that might be included in the strategies and plans, again, if the Welsh Government is doing or has been doing costings on providing more interpreters, for example, then it would have been helpful if they could have shared that with us. But at the same time, they made it clear to us that they didn't have the resource themselves within the timescale remaining to do new work in that area specifically for this Bill.

Okay, thank you for that. That's good. I'll now bring Mike Hedges in, please, if I can.

Diolch, Cadeirydd. The first question I've got is: we know you took into account the Bills introduced in Wales and Scotland. Did you look at anywhere else? And did you look at any other BSL Bills?

We also looked at Northern Ireland, as I indicated, which has a Bill currently going through. We are aware of other legislation, such as in New Zealand, which is now 20 years old. They've been carrying out, or their committee in Parliament there have been carrying out a review this year. I'm aware of some of the positives that have resulted from that, such as a national interactive online programme that's accessible to anyone for communication through New Zealand sign language, not BSL, but also the areas where we can learn from the areas that didn't work as well as they could have.

It would appear from what I do know about it, and it is not a vast amount in New Zealand, that the issues that they discovered, where there was insufficient action in the early years, were similar to those identified in Scotland, perhaps reinforcing the need for—and this might be an area that you are going to question me on shortly—monitoring and evaluation of public bodies to continue through the various structures proposed, and possibly through further regulations in the future, where it appears that public bodies are not necessarily delivering on the plans, or the plans themselves are not sufficiently rigorous.

Thank you for that, Mark. As we both know, health have a duty to provide BSL. We know that local government has to provide BSL for people who need it, because it is their first language. Are you able to estimate the costs that are already being incurred by health and local government in providing BSL provision?

I'm not—. I don't have any figure for that. I don't know if we have—

No. I suppose that goes back to the earlier point about this being the costs of the framework that's being set up, rather than the costs of actually implementing those plans. And I think a lot of the comments that we got in consultation were about the funding for, and funding of, implementing these plans, making them available, and things that you were talking before about the training for translators, that sort of thing. So, the answer is, 'No, we haven't', but that doesn't impact on the costings in here.

The WLGA, for example, made it clear that their expectation is that when their plans identify the need for more interpreters, for example, they would be expecting or hoping that the Welsh Government would be providing funding accordingly. And that goes back to my earlier comments about matters that Members are raising regularly in the Chamber anyhow, and about how this could and should be part of the early prevention intervention agenda.

Okay, thank you, Mark. The staff and consultation costs to be incurred by listed public bodies for preparing and publishing BSL plans are estimated to be approximately £1 million. But when you consider that we've got 22 local authorities, eight health boards and a whole range of other public bodies, doesn't that come out as something less than £20,000 per public body?

The average figure, and obviously they're different-sized public bodies, is £7,500. Clearly, it'll be more front-end loaded at the beginning, where the higher admin costs in delivering what the Bill requires will be higher, and in some years lower. But that would be the average for the Bill itself. It doesn't, of course, as we've already discussed, cover any costs resulting from actions following the plans.

Okay. And finally, from me: the total cost of preparing and reporting on BSL plans could be as high as approximately £1.5 million for all listed public bodies, with the cost of implementing these plans not included in the regulatory impact assessment. How low could it be?

Well, our lowest estimate is £2.1 million, based on the feedback we've had from the WLGA and the health boards, but is there any indication that it could be lower?

Well, it could be. It's all around how much collaboration there is. I think we felt we'd do a higher estimate, which would be all organisations almost working on their own. But I think, again, the feedback we got from local authorities, and when we discussed with the WLGA—. We'd hoped there'd be an expectation that they would collaborate, and they were also feeding back, 'We really would like to see this done at a regional partnership level.' So, we would expect the cost to be at the lower end, and then we were fortunate, in a way, that we could look at the size of plans that had been in place in Scotland. So, we had a good example of how long they were, so that would help us in terms of how much resource we'd need in terms of publishing these reports and providing BSL format reports as well.

Thank you very much, Mark.

Thank you.

And that brings us to nearly the close of our questions today. The one question I did ask the Cabinet Secretary last week, and I had a positive response from her; I'm sure I'll get a positive response from yourself: as part of this Bill, would your expectation be that Senedd.tv, as it is today, as a matter of course, would have BSL translation, so that we can actually pave the way and give an example of what 'good' looks like in this, and becoming a trilingual Senedd as opposed to a bilingual Senedd?

Senedd.tv and more. I was in the Scottish Parliament a couple of weeks ago, and it was noticeable that by the front reception desk, there was a sign talking about BSL access in the Scottish Parliament building. We know that BSL is now routinely provided at every First Minister's questions, for example. Arguably it should be at all proceedings, but it's more than we're doing, and it's pointing us in a direction I hope we'll follow.

Okay, thank you very much. Is there anything further you wanted to add before we bring this session to a close?

I think you've just about covered it. I hope and trust that you will make some helpful and constructive recommendations, not only to inform this Bill but hopefully to guide future Welsh Governments and public bodies in the direction they should be following.

Thank you very much. Diolch yn fawr, Mark. As you'll be more than aware, there will be a transcript available for you after this session to check for accuracy.

Therefore, I'd like to go into private. I think we covered that off before, so there we are. Thank you.