By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter
With more Powys County Council meetings set to be streamed live on the internet, problems with the Welsh language translation need to be sorted out quickly, it has been claimed.
Over 18 months after first complaining about the problems for people who want to watch and listen to the council proceedings in Welsh, the issue had to be raised at the last full meeting of PCC.
Plaid Cymru group leader, Elwyn Vaughan, said: “A couple of meetings ago, we brought it to attention that there were problems with the room and webcasting. At the moment this meeting like many others over the last 18 months is breaking the Welsh Language Act. It’s a matter that has been raised for 18 months, when is this going to be sorted out?”
Council solicitor, Clive Pinney, said: “ICT and Directorate Services have been working with the Welsh Government and with our suppliers to produce a fixable solution.
“I’m afraid to say it’s more difficult and technical than we would have hoped. It’s not helped that we have had to go and change our suppliers because of a lack of response from our initial suppliers.
“All I can say at this moment in time, it’s at the top of our priorities and we will try and deal with it as soon as possible. Although I cannot give any assurance of time-scales. We are waiting on details of the specification.”
The Welsh Language measure (2011) has two main guiding principles:
· The Welsh language should be treated no less favourably than the English language;
· People living in Wales should be able to live their lives through the medium of Welsh if they choose to do so.
This means that people who want to watch and listen to the webcast of council meetings through the medium of Welsh should be able to do so.
Part of the move to provide greater transparency of PCC’s work has been to set up more scrutiny committees so it is expected that more meetings will be webcast.
At the moment only full council and cabinet meetings are available to watch online