Welsh Language Promotion Strategy 2023 - 28
In this section
- Objectives, Sub-objectives, work areas and main partners
- Objective 1: An increase in Welsh speakers
- Objective 2 : Maintaining the pride, confidence and use of the county’s residents in the Welsh language
- Objective 3: Welsh as the norm in the workplace and workforce
- Objective 4: Thriving Welsh communities
Aim and vision
Aim: To make Welsh the main language of the County. Our aim is to restore Welsh to a language spoken and used by the majority of our inhabitants consistently, and in all aspects of life.
While members of the Forum were in agreement about continuing with the same aim into the next five-year period, a desire was also expressed to change gears in terms of this aim. Following all the co-planning, influencing and collaboration that has taken place over the last five years and before, we feel there is now a basis and need to be more confident in discussing the Welsh language in the county.
We believe that we have reached a point in the history of Welsh in Carmarthenshire where we should move away from ‘encouraging its use’ and towards declaring that Welsh is at the core of the county’s identity and welcoming everyone to the language and to the community of the language, without apology. We want to plan and deliver in a way that accepts that Welsh is the norm in the county and does not need to be ‘normalised’ anymore. To reflect this, we agreed on the following vision to inform the approach we will take in implementing this Strategy.
Vision: We want to see an increase in the proportion of Carmarthenshire residents who can speak Welsh and use their Welsh consistently. We want to see the Welsh language as a working and operating norm in the County’s public institutions and increasingly prevalent in the County’s businesses. We want our young people to see a future for themselves in the County in sustainable and prosperous Welsh communities, economically, culturally and socially.
We want everyone to be proud of the Welsh language in Carmarthenshire.
We also recognise that the 2023 Census results will highlight geographical areas within the county that have not yet reached this state of linguistic confidence, and the new Census figures will drive our response to these challenges. At first glance, it appears that ‘language transmission’ and ‘population movement’ will be areas that this Strategy will explore in more detail when analysing Census results.
The fundamental objectives of the first Strategy, such as creating more confident speakers, and maintaining the use of Welsh as a whole will obviously continue in this Strategy, but there will be a more focused emphasis on the Welsh language and the economy, workforce and workplace as these are themes in which, as a forum, we have developed a clearer understanding of how action is needed to improve the position of the Welsh language in the county.
The Forum also feels that ‘Marketing the Welsh language’ has progressed in the period of this strategy. It now seems better suited to be actioned intertwined with the activity of the other objectives, as a feature of all the work of this Strategy.
The work of raising the status of the Welsh language and raising awareness of specific elements of the Welsh language (such as Welsh language education, and the need for Welsh language skills in the workforce) will be undertaken as a core part of achieving all the objectives.
There will also be an attempt, during the next five-year period to identify audiences within the county who do not understand the significance and benefits of bilingualism and of the Welsh language as a fundamental and unique aspect of our county’s identity and culture. We will seek to convey these messages in new and innovative ways.
The Forum will also prioritise the 2021 Census data. We will analyse the most significant trends at community level and respond through planning at a geographical level. Time will tell what the new geographical priorities will be, and it will have to be carefully prioritised to be realistic about what can be
achieved with the resources available.
This Strategy categorises the sub-objectives as ones that should be addressed in the short, medium and long term. This will enable us to give clearer direction to the work of the action plan whilst recognising that it is not realistic to try to achieve everything at the same time.
The Strategy also identifies an Area of Work to match each subobjective, in order to set a clear operational direction.
Approaches to implementing and monitoring the Objectives:
The Mechanism
Most of the planning of this second Promotion Strategy was carried out at meetings of the County Strategic Forum. Having done detailed work on assessing the success of the first Strategy, there were discussions on objectives and priorities.
The planning also took input from the partnerships and documents below into account, and space has been allowed for analysing and finalising the implications of the 2021 Census data in the Strategy as well, as the timing of the data did not allow for full consideration of them while drafting this Second Strategy.
In the same way as in the first Strategy, all the organisations on the Forum implement the Strategy by promoting the Welsh language and providing opportunities for county residents to use the Welsh language. The detail of their provision is in their annual plans and strategies as independent organisations. The national bodies that are members of the Forum generally operate according to national targets, and while their objectives align precisely with the objectives of this Strategy, there is little way to get input into their provision at a county level.
However, meetings of this Forum and Promotion Strategy provide a valuable opportunity to ensure that we co-plan at county level within the confines of those national targets. It must be recognised that there are voluntary, community organisations and partnerships that contribute indirectly to this Strategy. A number of chapels and choirs, village halls and various clubs provide key Welsh language social opportunities without being a direct contributor to any wider strategy.
While the core work of promoting the Welsh language in the county is progresses continuously in line with the individual organisations’ plans, there will be an Action Plan for this Strategy, which will identify actions for addressing the objectives of the Strategy. It will provide a vehicle to drive the work forward and the forum will receive updates from the contributing bodies to these action points on a quarterly basis.
We will develop an impact measurement framework, which sets out measures for the objectives of the Strategy.
Each work area will be timetabled to Forum meetings in turn and as the work areas are addressed at Forum meetings. Each area of work will be discussed twice in the Strategy period and the data will therefore be updated twice. This will enable the Forum to track progress in line with the objectives as the fiveyear period progresses.
At the end of the five years, a detailed analysis of the Welsh language situation in the County will be prepared, which will provide us with detailed information on the impact of the Strategy and action plan. This report will also include statistical information from national censuses and surveys.
