British Sign Language (BSL) national plan 2023-2029: consultation

Part 1: Consultation

Why We Consult

Consultation is an essential part of the policy making process. It gives us the opportunity to get your opinion and expertise on a proposed area of work. You can find all Scottish Government consultations online. Each consultation goes over the issues under consideration, as well as providing a way for you to give us your views, either online or sending in a video in BSL. After a consultation is closed, we publish all responses where you have given us permission to do so. Responses are analysed and used as part of the policy making process, along with a range of other available information and evidence. Responses to this consultation will help to shape the BSL National Plan 2023-2029

Responding to this Consultation

We are inviting responses to this consultation by 3 September 2023

Please respond to this consultation using the Scottish Government’s consultation hub, Citizen Space (http://consult.gov.scot). Access and respond to this consultation online at: https://consult.gov.scot/equality-and-human-rights/british-sign-language-national-plan-2023-2029. You can save and return to your responses while the consultation is still open. Please ensure that consultation responses are submitted before the closing date of 3 September 2023

If you are unable to respond using our consultation hub, please complete the Respondent Information Form to:

BSL Policy Team
Scottish Government
1WR
St Andrew’s House
Edinburgh, EH1 3DG

Other Ways to Respond

If you prefer, you can also submit a video in BSL via email to: BSLConsult@gov.scot. Send us an email with YouTube or Vimeo links to videos of your responses. Please do not attach videos to the email as we cannot receive large files, and try to keep all your responses in one video to ensure they are all recorded. You can also send your responses in English by email to BSLConsult@gov.scot or send a hardcopy response by post to: BSL Policy Team, 1WR, St Andrew’s House, 2 Regent Road, Edinburgh, EH1 3DG.

Please ensure that you complete the Respondent Information Form provided in Annex A and attach it alongside your response. The Respondent Information Form lets us know how you wish your response to be handled, and whether you are happy for your response to be made public. It is helpful if you can be clear which question you are responding to so that we can make sure that we take your views into account in the right place.

All BSL video submissions will be sent to Deaf Action for translation into English. Please be aware that whilst personal identification cannot be avoided with BSL submissions, the Scottish Government takes data protection seriously and has measures in place to ensure your data is safe. Your submission will be handled by Scottish Government and translators at Deaf Action, and once the translation has been completed, your submission will be deleted. Any emails and hard copies will be destroyed once they have been processed.

Handling your response

If you respond using the consultation hub, you will be directed to the About You page before submitting your response. Please indicate how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are content for your response to published. If you ask for your response not to be published, we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.

All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Government is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

If you are unable to respond via Citizen Space, please complete and return the Respondent Information Form included in this document.

To find out how we handle your personal data, please see our privacy policy:

https://www.gov.scot/privacy/

Next steps in the process

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public, and after we have checked that they contain no potentially defamatory material, responses will be made available to the public at http://consult.gov.scot. If you use the consultation hub to respond, you will receive a copy of your response via email.

Comments and complaints

If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to the contact address above or at BSLConsult@scot.gov

Scottish Government consultation process

Consultation is an essential part of the policymaking process. It gives us the opportunity to consider your opinion and expertise on a proposed area of work.

You can find all our consultations online: http://consult.gov.scot. Each consultation details the issues under consideration, as well as a way for you to give us your views, either online, by email or by post.

Responses will be analysed and used as part of the decision-making process, along with a range of other available information and evidence. We will publish a report of this analysis for every consultation. Depending on the nature of the consultation exercise the responses received may:

• Indicate the need for policy development or review.
• Inform the development of a particular policy.
• Help decisions to be made between alternative policy proposals.
• Be used to finalise legalisation before it is implemented.

While details of particular circumstances described in a response to a consultation exercise may usefully inform the policy process, consultation exercises cannot address individual concerns and comments, which should be directed to the relevant public body.