Welsh language annual report 2022–2023

Executive summary

Croeso to our Welsh language annual report for 2022-2023. This report focuses on how we have implemented our Welsh language standards policy and the work we have done to improve our Welsh language services during this reporting period.

On 1 April 2023 we celebrated a decade of serving the people of Wales and launched our Corporate Plan 2023-2030. The work on the Corporate Plan included extensive consultation sessions with staff on the Welsh version of the plan, to ensure that the vision, values and well-being objectives were expressed in a true and original Welsh voice with input from our Welsh speaking staff. The Welsh version of the plan was written using the pair writing translation method, which enables everyone involved to share ideas, ask questions, and improve the content in both languages.

The plan includes our commitment in creating opportunities in the use of Welsh across the organisation supporting the use internally as well as with partners and customers. This pride and confidence in using Welsh in our work has been at the forefront of our minds as the corporate plan evolved, ensuring our vision, mission and values were written in a way that resonate in the Welsh and English languages.

Language is an important part of a person’s identity and the Welsh language skills of our workforce play a major part in our ability to communicate effectively with our Welsh speaking customers. Not all staff can speak Welsh but, being able to say a few words in Welsh can go a long way and make a big difference when dealing with customers and partners. 24.3% (571) of our staff are fluent Welsh speakers with numbers steadily increasing over the last few years through our recruitment procedures and staff who are developing their language skills through our training programme. Most of our teams have at least one Welsh speaker. 93.7% (2198) of our staff can show linguistic courtesy when meeting and greeting others.

During the Pandemic the number of staff developing their language skills decreased. We are pleased that over this reporting period, 173 of our staff have been developing their skills weekly, this is an increase of 35 from last year. Most of our learners are based in Ceredigion and Powys 27% (46), with 17% (29) are or near being fluent Welsh speakers.

We won the Work Welsh Employer of the Year for 2022 due to the support we provide staff to learn Welsh. Coleg Gwent also awarded our advanced Welsh course with Workplace Class of the Year due to their commitment and perseverance over several years in continuing to develop their language skills.

In November 2022 we were pleased to announce and promote that fishing licences can now be purchased in Welsh on .Gov website. This service has been developed working in partnership with the Environment Agency who administer the fishing licence purchase service on our behalf. We will continue to work with the Environment Agency over the next year to ensure that all the pages are available in Welsh.

Our website statistics show that over the year there were 53,013 (2.19%) page views on our Welsh pages, this is an increase of 4,994 views from last year.

We have a statutory duty to consult and add to the List of Historic Place Names and very pleased to work alongside the Welsh Language Commissioner and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical monuments of Wales to develop a guidance and training event for our staff.

We still receive complaints and welcome members of the public drawing our attention to matters when they have not received the service in Welsh, they expected too from us. This helps us in understanding the needs of our customers better and where interventions are needed to improve our services for the future.

Introduction

The Welsh Language Standards came into force for NRW on 25 January 2017, under the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011 and regulated by the Welsh Language Commissioner under Welsh Language Standards (No. 2) Regulations 2016.

Aim of the Standards are:

• Provide a better and more consistent Welsh language service to Welsh speakers.
• Make it clear to Welsh speakers’ what services they can expect in Welsh.
• Make it clear to public organisations what their duties are in relation to the Welsh language.
• Ensure that the Welsh language is treated no less favourably than the English language.

This report demonstrates how we have implemented the standards and the work we have done to improve our Welsh language services during the reporting year 2022/23.

Welsh language standards

The standards we are required to comply with are in four categories:

Service standards - the Welsh language services we provide to the public.

Policy standards - ensuring that Welsh language forms part of the decision-making process by carrying out Equality Impact Assessments ensuring that the decision has no adverse effect, but positive or increased effects on the opportunities to use the Welsh language.

Operational standards - promoting and facilitating the Welsh language in our internal administration processes.

Record keeping standards - keeping records for compliance with the requirements of the standards in areas such as staff Welsh language skills, training, complaints, and recruitment.

Governance and monitoring our standards

Monitoring compliance of Standards is carried out by Welsh Language Policy Advisor, any risks highlighted to our Executive Team for discussion with Managers and explained at Grŵp Pencampwyr meetings.

Grŵp Pencampwyr members will raise any issues of non-compliance with the Welsh Language Policy Advisor and at each meeting.

How we promote, facilitate and oversee compliance with our Standards is published on our website - How we comply with our standards

Implementing and improving our Welsh language standards

Service standards

Purchase of fishing licences on .Gov

The Environment Agency administer the fishing licence purchase service on our behalf, and over the last few years we have been working with them to develop the Welsh language capability of the service on the .Gov website. With funding and translation support from NRW the pages were updated, and the service became live on Gov.uk website in November 2022 allowing the public to purchase their licence in Welsh. A direct link is provided from our website to this service.

New webpages were created to promote fishing and this new service in readiness for the new 2023 season, encouraging Welsh speakers and learners to apply for their licence in Welsh, along with a press release. 

This new service was also promoted on our and The Angling Trust social media accounts under the heading “Fishing in Wales”. The service was promoted again at the beginning of the fishing season in March and April, reminding the public of the need to renew their licences which we hope will prompt users to use the service.

Further work is required to ensure the landing pages on .Gov are available in Welsh, which will take place in a subsequent release of the service. Updating the pages will be dependent on Environment Agency engagement with .Gov, their processes, and their timelines. In the meantime, a message will be published on the landing page to inform users that they are able to purchase a Fishing Licence in Welsh. Once this work has been carried out the whole of the Fishing Licence Purchase service will be available in Welsh and compliant with our Standards.

This is a requirement of Standards 48, 51 and 52.

Translation team

Since March 2022 the team is near full capacity in terms of staff, which has allowed more translation work to be carried out internally. This helps in supporting the organisation with our Welsh language needs and allows considerable collaboration on projects, thereby helping to make the Welsh language an important part of our work.

By working with colleagues across the organisation, the team takes advantage of any opportunities to create original Welsh text rather than simply providing translations at the end of the process. For example, the team worked on a project for new Welsh Coast Path T-shirts, which now have original poetic Welsh lines on them created by a team member rather than a translation.

The team also advises colleagues on possibilities and alternatives to direct translations, and how best to proceed by including the Welsh language as an integral part of projects – the team always strives to be innovative in doing this. This has resulted in countless bilingual videos and podcasts, and, for example, monolingual Welsh videos with English subtitles rather than producing a video twice.

The team is also keen to take advantage of opportunities for a translator to be involved in the content creation process, and often contribute by writing as a pair or as a trio when creating digital content. Creating content in this way enables everyone involved to share ideas, ask questions, and improve the content in both languages. We also had the opportunity to present this work at one of the Digital Public Service Centre sessions.

Our Corporate Plan was written in a similar way, ensuring the Welsh language was a core part of the preparation of what is an important document for the immediate future of the organisation. The text went back and forth between languages – allowing the languages to influence each other, and for improvements to be made to the text in each language. If a section or passage was particularly successful in Welsh, the English could be amended in a similar way, and vice versa.

The work on the Corporate Plan also included extensive consultation sessions with staff on the Welsh version of the plan, to ensure that the vision and objectives were expressed in a true and original Welsh voice with input from our Welsh speaking staff.

The Translation Team will continue to seek opportunities to work in innovative ways, and to work closely with colleagues across the organisation, to ensure that the Welsh language is at the heart of everything we do as an organisation.

Updating our bilingual Microsoft templates

Recently we refreshed our brand, and as part of this work our Microsoft templates were updated. Welsh language considerations have been added to the templates, this will act as a reminder to all colleagues of the need to consider the Welsh language as part of their day-to-day work. 

The templates which include Welsh language considerations are:

• Letterhead template reminds staff to ask a customer’s language preference for both corresponding and telephoning calls and includes the by-line welcoming correspondence in Welsh.
• General document, evidence report, general report and procedure templates remind colleagues to consider translation requirements. A direct link to our Translation Assessment Guidance is provided.
• Agenda template reminds staff of the need to consider translation requirements for public meetings and consider simultaneous translation needs.
• Policy template reminds of the need to translate policies prior to publishing and the need for an equality impact assessment which includes language considerations.

As part of this work, our email signature template is now embedded into outlook email for staff to use which includes the by-line welcoming correspondence in Welsh. Having the by-line embedded in the signature will make it easier for staff to use and be compliant with our Standards.

To help ensure a more consistent approach in colleagues using our most updated templates, our Brand Manager will be issuing guidance, promoting the guidance, and raising awareness in our brand module as part of the induction process for new colleagues. 

The above are requirements of Standards 2, 7, 9, 36, 43, 101-107.

Telephone guidance

The telephone guidance has been refreshed to reflect the move to using Microsoft Teams Telephones. The guidance includes some Welsh phrases colleagues could use to show linguistic courtesy when using the telephone. This will help in complying with our standards when answering the telephone, making telephone calls and being proactively in offering a language choice to the caller as well as setting up a bilingual answer phone message as part of our day to day work. The guidance has been promoted on the intranet.

This is a requirement of Standards 8 – 22.

Procurement guidance – May 2023

A new Procurement Guidance has recently been drafted to help staff in understanding what considerations need to be given to the Welsh language and included as part of the tender process when contracting out services and goods.

The guidance will also help third parties in understanding what services and how we will require them to deliver in Welsh when providing services on our behalf, helping to deliver a service which is compliant with the requirements of our Standards.

This guidance will help in considering the needs of Welsh speakers when contracting out services and goods in line with requirements of our Service Delivery Standards and will be promoted during the next year.

This is a requirement of our Service Delivery Standards 1 – 83.

Website

Our statistics show that over the year there were 53,013 (2.19%) page views on our Welsh pages, this is an increase of 4,994 views from last year. There were 2,363,972 (97.64%) on English pages.

The most accessed page in Welsh was our job vacancy pages with 1,633 page views.

The Digital Services Team continued to work to work closely with partners to develop, share and learn from best practice to design and build services that promote and ease the use of Welsh.

This includes:

• Being an active contributor to the Designing Bilingual Services community, and contributing to new guidance to support the service standards.
• Working with colleagues ICT, Translation and Fisheries in NRW to support the development of the get a fishing licence service on gov.uk in Welsh.

Customer Hub

The Customer Hub deals with all incoming calls for our organisation. During this reporting year the Hub dealt with a total of 18,773 calls, 4.68% (879) of the calls were Welsh medium calls. The calls handled in Welsh are slightly down by 0.55% (185) from last year as were the total number of incoming calls which were also down by 7.61% (1,547). This decrease could also be due to the increase in people using our website to access our services in Welsh.

Despite a proactive language offer, a number of Welsh speakers still initially choose our English service, but the call will often change to a Welsh language call when it is understood that the call handler is a Welsh speaker. However, because the customer initially selected the English service these calls are registered as English medium calls on our system despite ultimately being dealt with in Welsh.

This is a requirement of Standards 8, 9, 10, 13 and 16.

North West Wales public service board

Evidence in place shows that Welsh speakers choose not to use Welsh language services when contacting public organisations and a project was undertaken by the North Wales Public Service Board Welsh Language sub-group to try and establish what the barriers are. Coed y Brenin was one of the ten reception settings where the interaction between staff and customers was observed as part of this project work.

The findings from the observations and speaking to staff and customers found:

• A language choice was in place, but not always obvious enough or a proactive Welsh/bilingual greeting offered to the customer to encourage the use of Welsh.
• Where an “active offer” was initiated by staff, this made a difference in the language spoken. There is a limited opportunity for staff to make a difference in the language choice of customers – hence the importance of the proactive bilingual greeting being given first by staff.
• Service users needed to hear Welsh spoken to be sure that they could speak to staff in Welsh.
• Regular customers or those who had visited before knew that they could use the Welsh language being familiar with staff.
• Some Welsh learners felt confident to practice their language skills.
• Parents wanting to show an example and encourage their children to speak and use Welsh.

Learnings from this exercise:

• We need to make sure that the environment is bilingual and welcoming.
• Ensure everything visual e.g., posters and signs are bilingual.
• Auditory environment heavily influences people’s language choice.

Guidance have been drafted which will be shared with reception staff which contains top tips, a checklist and examples of words and useful phrases in meeting and greeting customers at reception following this project.

This work will help ensure our compliance with Standards 60, 63 and 64.

Education and health training events

During the year our Education and Health Team ran 36 courses in total.

• 16 face to face, 6 were through the medium of Welsh only.
• 18 bilingual webinars, 6 were through the medium of Welsh only.
• 2 GP training courses (these can be run in Welsh).
• The Team also delivered Welsh language workshops at Welsh Government’s first ever Wales Youth COP. One Welsh workshop, one bilingual workshop and bilingual representation on the display stand.

Participants on webinars and face to face courses receive bilingual course material with links to both Welsh and English versions of the resources shared.

The concept of ‘cynefin’ runs through the Curriculum for Wales – every training course, either face to face or online, includes information on how the landscape and geography of Wales has influenced Welsh culture, history, and the economy. Opportunities to promote the Welsh language are grasped e.g., suggesting to educators that they investigate the history of place names and meaning of Welsh songs that relate to the landscape.

We continue to advise Welsh Government, supporting them to realise the Curriculum for Wales and the role of the Welsh natural environment within that.

We are required to offer any education courses in Welsh, which is a requirement of Standard 80.

More information can be found in Appendix 1 of this report on the resources the team have produced for educators and teachers, their partnership work with others and national campaigns and events over this reporting period.

Flood warning and informing services

The flood warning service issues Flood Alerts, Flood Warnings and Severe Flood Warnings to the public and professional partners. Messages are sent by phone, SMS or email in Welsh or English, as requested by the recipient. These warning messages are complemented by the following services:

• NRW Website Services - 5 Day Flood Risk for Waleswebpage - where we provide a summary of potential flood risk across Wales for the next 5 days weblink
• Flood Warnings & Alertswebpage - we provide details of all warnings in force along with live flood information weblink

Each of these services are available in Welsh or English.

Floodline

Floodline is a UK wide service on 0345 988 1188 – a local rate call service where callers can listen to live flood information, listen to pre-recorded advice, and speak to a trained call agent to report flooding or register to the flood warning service

In July 2019, we improved the Floodline call plan to make it easier for callers to access our Welsh language service by including a Welsh language call agent service during weekday daytime hours. Outside these hours, or if a Welsh speaking call agent is unavailable, callers are given the option of leaving a message requesting a call back in Welsh, or to be diverted to an English-speaking call agent instead.

Although the proactive offer of a Welsh language service is still in place, Welsh speakers are often put through to English call handlers as the service cannot guarantee a dedicated Welsh speaker to deal with Welsh medium calls. Welsh medium callers can also choose to terminate the call and receive a call back from a Welsh language agent when one becomes available.

To address this issue a project has been commissioned in NRW D&I to improve this service which will be available 24/7 by diverting Welsh language calls from Floodline to our Incident Communication Centre. This will mean that Welsh speakers calling Floodline would be provided with a seamless Welsh language service via NRW ICC. This would be equal to that of the English language service and NRW would have control over the Welsh language service as well as being able to promote the service more widely here in Wales. The project is currently due for delivery in Autumn 2023. 

Providing a Welsh language service on helplines is a requirement of Standards 9 and 10.

NRW website – flood warnings, alerts and flood risk services

In October 2020, we refreshed our website design to make it easier and quicker to use, ensuring that the design was fully compatible with the Welsh language.

Visitors to our website are asked to choose their preferred language. Compared with the last financial year we have seen an increase in visitors to the Welsh language page for 5 day flood risk, but a decrease in visits to the Welsh language Warnings and Alerts page.

Flood warning message content 

A key element of our service is to provide real-time information to help people understand their immediate flood risk. This requires the ability to accurately translate information in Welsh. We are planning to explore options for developing this translation capability so that we can provide richer, more helpful information – noting there is little room for translation error in a potentially life-saving service. On completion of the Floodline improvement we plan to carry out activities to promote our Welsh language offering.

Information on our Flood services and statistics can be found in Appendix 2 of this report.

Raising awareness of our standards

Each month managers receive corporate information to share with their team. Over the last year we have continued to raise awareness of the Welsh language policy and managers have been asked to remind their teams to:

• Send out correspondence bilingually to customers/partners, ask and record their language preference unless language preference is already known
• Reply in Welsh to correspondence received in Welsh.
• Answer the telephone bilingually and set up a bilingual answerphone message.
• Meet and greet customers bilingually.
• Know who the Welsh speakers are in each team to help deal with Welsh enquiries.
• Ensure out of office messages are bilingual.
• Self-assess and record Welsh language skills in MyNRW.
• Ensure all power point presentations are bilingual.
• All forms should be bilingual or available in both languages.
• All signage, permanent and temporary should be bilingual with the Welsh text to appear to the left or above the English text.
• Use the Translation Checklist to assess whether a document needs translating.
• Updated Telephone communication guidance.

Grŵp Pencampwyr

The Grŵp Pencampwyr (Champions Group) have met four times over the last year with representatives from across the Directorates. This includes a Welsh learner who has joined to hear the language spoken naturally in a work environment. Over the year the Pencampwyr have: -

• Promoted our Welsh language training programme.
• Raised awareness of the new recruitment guidance for managers.
• Promote ICT systems we have available for staff to use through the medium of Welsh.
• Promote Welsh language culture days.
• Re-branding our ‘Cynllun Mentora’ which was launched in April 2023 as “Clwb Clonc”.
• Created Grŵp Pencampwyr Yammer page– to share ideas and events happening within their Directorate.
• Created Siop Siarad Cymraeg Yammer Group – where all staff can discuss matters in Welsh.

Managers toolkit guidance

A Manager’s Toolkit page has been created on our intranet to help Managers in understanding the tasks they need to complete as a manager. It brings together all the transactional activities that are required as a manager.

Guidance on the Welsh Language Standards have been added to the page. This will help mainstream the Welsh language more into day-to-day ways of working, helping Managers monitoring their team’s compliance with the Standards as part of their role. This will help in reducing complaints received from our customers.

To understand how well the Managers Toolkit Welsh language guidance has been implemented we will develop a monitoring form and carry out an exercise for Team Leaders to complete on their Teams compliance with the Standards.

Implementing our policy making standards

During this reporting year a decision by The Welsh Government Tribunal confirmed the definition of the term “policy decision” referred to in Standards 88 - 89 “any decision made by a body about the exercise of its functions or about the conduct of its business or other undertaking”. We must seek views as part of the consultation process on the effects that the decision may have on the opportunities to use the language, increase its use, any positive effects, or negative effects.

In monitoring our consultations, it was found that these questions were not always asked and needed closer monitoring. Following advice from the Welsh Language Commissioner and best practice, our guidance Consultation and Citizen Space guidance was updated and require questions in relation to the language be asked in all consultations regardless of their nature, this ensures consultees can provide us with that information and for the feedback considered as part of our decision-making processes.

Over the next year we will monitor the responses received to help ensure that the feedback provided forms part of our decision-making processes.

This is a requirement of Standards 84-89.

Implementing our operational standards

ICT

In September our new ICT internal Service Management Service was launched, this new service which all staff will use is more interactive and efficient to give a better ICT service and is available to be used in Welsh. This service allows all our staff to raise a ticket for help, support, advice, or new services from ICT without needing to phone or email and stay updated on progress and resolution times. This new service was promoted to all staff on the intranet and by email.

The system has been developed following our internal ICT guidance for systems where all or a large group of staff will use to develop or procure in Welsh if possible.

Information to new staff

To ensure new staff are aware of our requirement to work bilingually and be aware of our Welsh Language Standards we take the following steps: -

• Each new member of staff receives an email from our Welsh Language Training Co-Ordinator welcoming them to the organisation and providing information on our Welsh Language Scheme, Welsh Language Training programme, the need to self-assess and record language skills in MyNRW and inviting them to attend a Welsh Language Awareness course.
• A checklist is in place for managers to go through with each new member of staff, included in the checklist is the need to explain our Welsh Language Standards and to self-assess their language skills in MyNRW. This checklist is signed by staff member and line manager and is kept on file by our Recruitment Team.

This is a requirement of Standard 129.

Induction course

When the Covid restrictions were introduced our Induction course moved from face to face to on-line. Due to the success of the course and the smooth transition, we intend to continue with this format and continue in developing this course further.

Following the introduction of the simultaneous translation facility on Microsoft Teams at the end of 2022, we will now be able to facilitate this online course bilingually. We are in the process of reviewing all the course content, and with the support of our Translation Team most of the revised course content will be ready by the next cohort which is due to take place in May 2023. The reviewed course includes a presentation on the Welsh Language Standards and how we implement them and what support is available to enable all our staff to work bilingually.

Whilst most of the on-screen presentations are bilingual, all accompanying documentation is provided in both Welsh and English, not all presentations are made in Welsh. This will be dependent on the individual presenting and the expertise required to explain the subject matter. We will continue to develop the course in a blended way, with some of the content being presented in Welsh only and using simultaneous translation to facilitate these sessions. This will provide non-Welsh speaking staff with the experience of hearing the language spoken naturally in a work environment and seeing it written in the presentations. We will continue in developing a Welsh medium course over the next year.

This is a requirement of Standard 129.

Welsh language awareness training

We have started trialling a few different providers to deliver this training, 60 members of staff have attended awareness sessions during this reporting period.

On St David’s Day 2023, we held a ‘Cymraeg a Chi’ awareness to all NRW staff. This session was a first of three designed to discuss how everyone’s language journey is different and that we are all continue to learn even if we consider ourselves fluent Welsh speakers. This session was met with great feedback and was a great way to celebrate St David’s Day.

This is a requirement of Standard 128.

Welsh language training programme

Over this reporting period, 173 members of staff are attending Welsh language training at various levels. This is an increase of 35 from last year:

• Most of our learners this year are based in Ceredigion and Powys 27% (46) and North West 24% (41).
• 17% (29) of our learners are or near being fluent Welsh speakers.
• If the 10% (18) who are currently learning at Intermediate level continue learning, they will become fluent Welsh speakers within the next 3 to 4 years.

Welsh language skills of our workforce play a major part in our ability to communicate effectively with Welsh speakers. Whilst most of our learners are in the Welsh speaking heartlands of Ceredigion, North Powys and North West, we need to encourage more of our staff to develop their language skills in South West Wales where the language is also spoken widely. 11 members of staff are currently developing their language skills in this area, and this will help us in building trusting relationships and in being able to provide an “active offer” helping to ensure people’s needs are understood and met.

This is a requirement of Standard 126, 127 and 128.

More information on our Training programme can be found in Appendix 3 of this report.

Awards

In 2022, NRW won the Work Welsh Employer of the Year for 2022. This was awarded for the support we provide to our staff members to enable them to commit to learning Welsh. This was a great achievement for NRW, and we have celebrated this accolade internally and on our social media pages. Support includes our mentoring scheme, allocating time during the working week for staff to study, covering the cost of Welsh courses and course books and allowing for study leave during working hours. Our staff were also praised for the determination and perseverance during the disturbance caused by Covid-19.

Coleg Gwent also awarded our NRW Advanced Welsh course with Workplace Class of the Year for 2022. The group’s tutor nominated the class for this award due to their continuous contribution, enthusiasm, and dedication to learning Welsh, particularly during lockdown and with their ever-changing work commitments and emergencies. The award-winning Welsh learners have been learning Welsh since 2013.

The learners shared their top tips to successful learning:

• “Dal ati” (keep going) to lessons
• Join additional sessions if able to e.g., “Sadwrn Siarad” helping to achieve and use Welsh skills outside the classroom
• Listening to “Say Something in Welsh” every day, when going for a walk
• Use Welsh language skills whenever possible to practice speaking, with friends, family at meetings in work or even to the cashier at the shop

Wales aim to have 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050 and as an organisation we embrace this challenge by encouraging and supporting our staff to take up an opportunity to learn Welsh.

The Welsh Government has published the Anti-racist Wales Action Plan (ARWAP), with a vision of ‘A Wales which is Anti-racist by 2030’. ARWAP sets out to tackle institutional and structural racial inequalities in Wales in order to make ‘meaningful and measurable changes to the lives of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people by tackling racism’ and achieve ‘a Wales that is anti-racist by 2030’. 

1. Education and Welsh Language: More is done to promote access to the Welsh language by ethnic minority communities in the areas of education, language learning, the workplace and community activities.

- NRW have a Welsh Language Training programme in place to. This support colleagues develop their Welsh language skills, though not specifically targeting ethnic minority people, the courses are available to help all staff develop their language skills in work time across Wales. 

- NRW won 'Work Welsh Employer of the Year', and one of our Advanced Welsh courses has been awarded 'Workplace Class of the Year' with Coleg Gwent for 2022. Three of the Welsh learners happened to be from ethnically diverse backgrounds, respectively, including ‘other white’. 

Coed y Brenin – supporting learners

Coed y Brenin Visitor Centre is in one of the Welsh speaking heartlands of Wales. A few of the staff are learning Welsh and each Wednesday a “paned a sgwrs” (cuppa and a chat) session takes place to practice their spoken Welsh informally with colleagues.

In March an “Am Dro a Sgwrs” (Walk and Chat) session led by Eryri National Park staff took place from the Centre. This provided learners the opportunity to practice their Welsh skills. It is important that visitors experience that “sense of place” when visiting Coed y Brenin in being greeted bilingually by our staff. Hearing the language spoken, seeing it written on our signage and pamphlets as well as being able to use the language however little with our staff, helps to create a unique experience for those visiting the centre.

Launch of recruitment guidance

Following the trial of a new process for assessing the language level of each new or vacant post prior to advertising, where Managers follow the guidance and complete a Microsoft Teams form to capture the assessment. The guidance was launched in September 2022, is available on the intranet and promoted in Managers Monthly. The Recruitment Team have access to the assessments and will check that the process has been completed for each vacancy prior to advertising. The form is monitored to ensure the guidance is followed and to ensure there are Welsh speakers in all our teams who deal with the public regularly.

This is a requirement of Standards 132 and 132a.

Promoting Welsh culture and language

Over the last year, we have celebrated several events virtually and one event face to face. to promote Welsh language and culture both internally and externally. The events we have celebrated this year are: -

• Calan Mai– 1 May – article on our internal intranet page explaining the history of the event.
• Canmlwyddiant Urdd Centenary – 11 May – shared the message of peace and God will on our Social Media platforms
• 25^th Birthday of the Wales Coast Path
• #TeamNRW day – 15 June – had a Welsh language training stand offering ‘Cymraeg Gwaith’ lanyards and ‘Dwi’n Dysgu Cymraeg’ badges. This also allowed learners to meet in a face-to-face setting.
• Diwrnod Shwmae Day – 15 October – article on our internal intranet and sharing posters produced by Learn Welsh and Mentrau Iaith on Yammer
• Welsh Language Rights Day – 7 December – NRW staff created a video explaining the importance of Welsh to them. This video also included some of our learners who explained how important learning Welsh is to them.
• Welsh Learners Blog – week commencing 12 December – this was to celebrate winning ‘Workplace Class of the Year for 2022’
• Diwrnod Santes Dwynwen Day – 25 January – article on the intranet and sharing photos on Yammer
• Dydd Miwsig Cymraeg/ Welsh Music Day– February – started a chat on Yammer about Welsh music and bands
• Dydd Gwyl Dewi/ St David’s Day – 1 March – arranged “Cymraeg a Chi” Welsh Language Awareness course. Côr Cyfoeth also recorded Calon Lân especially in celebration of the day which was posted on the intranet and on social media.
• Diwrnod y llyfr/ World Book Day– 2 March – started a conversation on Yammer about different Welsh books available.

Recreation team

Following the decision taken by the National Park Authority regarding the use of Welsh names Eryri and Yr Wyddfa only moving forward, in direct response our Recreation Team have updated our website to reflect this change. As several of our recreation sites are in the National Park and promoted on our Days Out pages on the website, it was decided to put Eryri (Snowdonia) in the titles and in the first mention section of the text, then use Eryri in the rest. All mention of the National Park has been updated to Eryri National Park and the same approach has been taken for Yr Wyddfa.

This was felt to be the best approach initially and will be re-visited at some point in the future when the use of Eryri and Yr Wyddfa is more well known. Using Welsh names gives those visiting the area the opportunity to engage with the Welsh language and culture.

Historic place names

As an organisation we have a statutory duty to consult and add to the List of Historic Place Names which contains hundreds of thousands of place names collected from historical maps and other sources. It provides an insight into the land-use, archaeology, and history of Wales. Historic place names link us with the past, our history and culture. Study of the place names (toponymy) of an area can strengthen a sense of belonging and continuity with previous generations and with our heritage.

Our Landscape, Planning and Energy Team have worked alongside the Welsh Language Commissioner and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW) developed and published Operational Guidance Note (OGN) 124 Historic Place Names. The guidance is aimed at all staff who are involved in any naming activities or staff who may come across historic names which may not yet be listed e.g., in the purchase of new land where historic field names are shared. We understand this may be the first public body specific guidance relating to Historic Place names in Wales.

In March 2023 a bilingual training event was held using the simultaneous translation facility in Microsoft Teams. Presentations were delivered from NRW, the RCAHMW and the Welsh Language Commissioner’s Office and covered the List of Historic Place names and Statutory Guidance, the importance of standardising Welsh place names, OGN124 and examples of NRW place name activity. The event was attended by 65 members of staff and recorded for those who could not make the live event.

We now plan to look at ways of connecting areas across the organisation involved in place name activity, to collate and report this information in one place enabling us to report that NRW are meeting our statutory duties regarding the List of Historic place names.

Team NRW day

In June our annual #Team NRW day was held in Aberystwyth. This is an event which all staff are invited to attend in person or online. The Welsh language formed part of planning process from the start and several the main presenters on the day did so bilingually, all display material was bilingual, with a mixture of Welsh and English videos produced for the day.

By ensuring sufficient time in planning and consideration given to the language, the event ran smoothly and naturally bilingually without the use of simultaneous translators on the day.

Record keeping standards

Our Standards require that we keep records as follows:

The number of employees who have Welsh language skills at the end of the year in question on the basis of the records kept in accordance with standard 145

Over the last year our headcount has gone up by 87 and we have seen a steady increase in the language skills of our staff at most levels, with the highest percentage of our Welsh speakers fluent in both written and spoken Welsh at Level 5 (14.8%). Most of our fluent Welsh speakers (331) are in our Operations Directorate. Overall, 750 (32%) of our staff can discuss matters in Welsh with others at Levels, 3, 4 and 5, with 93.7% of our staff are able to show linguistic courtesy when meeting and greeting others.

The number of fluent Welsh speakers have increased by 16 through our recruitment process. The percentage increase from last year does not reflect this due to the increase in our overall staff numbers.

Staff are asked to self assess their language skills and record in MyNRW. The Welsh language skills of our staff in March 2022 can be found below:

• Level 5 = 348 (14.8%)
• Level 4 = 223 (9.5%)
• Level 3 = 179 (7.6%)
• Level 2 = 469 (20%)
• Level 1 = 980 (41.8%)
• No skills = 98 (4.2%)
• 49 (2.1%) are yet to self-assess their language skills.

Analysis of our fluent Welsh speakers show that:

• The majority are aged between 30-39 (159)
• 124 are aged between 50-59
• 50 are aged 60+
• 317 are male and 254 females
• 83 work part-time
• The highest numbers are in Grades 5 and 6 (272) with the lowest numbers (24) at our more senior Grades of 9 and above.
• 57 new starters are fluent Welsh speakers
• 28 fluent Welsh speakers have left during this reporting year

More information on the Welsh language skills of staff can be found in Appendix 4 of this report.

The number of staff who attended training courses offered in Welsh during the year on the basis of the records kept in accordance with standard 146. If a Welsh version of a course was offered during the year, the percentage of the total number of staff attending the course who attended the Welsh version on the basis of the records kept in accordance with standard 124.

During this reporting period none of the courses listed below were offered in Welsh as required in accordance with Standard 146:

• recruitment and interviewing – online using Microsoft Teams
• performance management – online using Microsoft Teams
• complaints and disciplinary procedures – no courses taken place
• induction – online using Microsoft Teams
• dealing with the public – no courses taken place
• health and safety – some face-to-face technical training

Most of our courses have continued online during this period apart from some health and safety technical courses.

The Recruitment Team will over the next year be developing and aiming to deliver the in-house recruitment and interviewing course in Welsh.

We are liaising with a company to deliver the courses mentioned below in Welsh in the future:

• Interviewing skills for interviewees
• Interviewing skills for interviewers

The number of new and vacant posts advertised during the year which were categorised as requiring Welsh language skills as essential, desirable, needed to be learnt when appointed to the post, or not necessary on the basis of the records kept in accordance with standard 148.

Some vacancies are advertised both internally and externally simultaneously. 456 were appointed from internal candidates, 290 from external candidates and 6 secondees from other public bodies, 752 in total.

All posts are advertised requiring Level 1 as the minimum language, training is given to staff who need to attain this level of understanding to show linguistic courtesy.

Number of posts advertised during this reporting period were as follows:

Language level	Essential	Desirable	Welsh to be learnt
Level 5 – fluency in spoken and written Welsh	5	0	0
Level 4 – fluency in spoken Welsh	48	0	0
Level 3 - The ability to communicate in Welsh with confidence in some work situations	36	30	7
Level 1 – The ability to pronounce basic Welsh names, phrases, and greetings	622	0	0

Analysis of the above stats and language abilities of staff who secured roles through our recruitment process, both internally and externally during this reporting period are as follows:

• 118 are Welsh speakers at Level 5
• 69 are Welsh speakers at Level 4
• 79 are Welsh speakers at Level 3
• 134 are Welsh speakers at Level 2
• 305 are Welsh speakers at Level 1
• 43 have no Welsh language skills

The 43 who do not meet the Level 1 minimum language level required are expected to complete the 10-hour online course provided by the National Centre for Learning Welsh. This course will need to be completed within the probationary period to help achieve this level.

The number of complaints received during the year which related to compliance with standards numbers 152, 156, 162 and 164 with which we are under a duty to comply with.

During this reporting period we received 4 complaints, this is a decrease from 10 received last year. Three complaints have come directly to us and one via the Welsh Language Commissioner’s Office.

Three complaints have been resolved and one is currently part of an investigation being carried out by the Welsh Language Commissioner on our non-compliance with our Welsh Language Standards.

Complaints received were as follows:

Issue	Outcome
In May 2022 a complaint was received having found inconsistencies on the spellings of Cwm Carn found on signage at the site.	A response was sent to the customer explaining that we had received several enquiries about this. As part of the response, we set out the history and background to the spelling we use, and a link was provided for more information on 'Standard Place Names' from the Welsh Language Commissioner's website.
In September 2022 the Welsh Language Commissioner received a call from a member of the public who had received an English only fishing licence.	The Environment Agency administer this service on our behalf and apologised to the customer explaining that a recent new digital service had been launched and was not currently available in Welsh. A Welsh language card license with associated letter was available. The customer was happy to receive the Welsh version of the license. The letter also explained the developments taking place on the website in relation to a Welsh language service which was launched in November 2022.
In December 2022 we received a complaint from a customer who received an English only letter. This complaint is currently being investigated by the Welsh Language Commissioner.	In a telephone call the customer was apologised to by the staff member for the error, the Team Leader also spoke to the complainant and sent the customer an email in Welsh. The customer made a complaint to the Welsh Language Commissioner who has decided to carry out an investigation into our non-compliance with our Welsh Language Standards policy. This matter is ongoing.
In January 2023 a complaint was received from a customer who had received correspondence from us in Welsh but the address on the letter was in English.	A response was sent to the complainant apologising and explained that the letter had been sent from an automated system. The team concerned investigated improving and correcting the system. A revised letter with the Welsh address was sent to the customer.

 

We receive complaints from our own staff on the lack of compliance with our internal language policy and Operational Standards. Due to the pandemic and working online along with the lack of simultaneous translation facilities in Microsoft Teams we are aware that at times it has been difficult to work bilingually internally. With the re-introduction of the simultaneous facility on Microsoft Teams at the end of 2022, we are now working to improve opportunities to use this facility more internally by running bilingual courses.

Commendations

The Education and Health Team were very pleased to receive commendation from Teachers for the great work they are doing in delivering training through the medium of Welsh to such a high standard. We appreciate the Teachers who took the time to acknowledge their appreciation of the team’s work.

Risk of non-compliance

Fishing licence service on .Gov

Further work is required to ensure the landing pages on .Gov are available in Welsh, which will take place in a subsequent release of the service. Updating the pages will be dependent on engagement between Environment Agency, .Gov, their processes, and their timelines. In the meantime, a message will be published on the landing page to inform users that they are able to purchase a Fishing Licence in Welsh.

Once the above work has been carried out the whole of the Fishing Licence Purchase service will be available in Welsh and compliant with our Standards.

Floodline UK

A proactive offer of a Welsh language service is still in place, Welsh speakers are often put through to English call handlers as the service cannot guarantee a dedicated Welsh speaker to deal with Welsh medium calls. Welsh medium callers can also choose to terminate the call and receive a call back from a Welsh language agent when one becomes available.

To address this issue a project has been commissioned in NRW D&I to improve this service which will be available 24/7 by diverting Welsh language calls from Floodline UK to our Incident Communication Centre. This will mean that Welsh speakers calling Floodline UK would be provided with a seamless Welsh language service via NRW ICC. This would be equal to that of the English language service and NRW would have control over the Welsh language service as well as being able to promote the service more widely here in Wales. The project is currently due for delivery in Autumn 2023. Once this service is operational, we will be compliant with Standards 9 and 10.

Training

The current contract for our safety online courses has been in place since 2013 and only available in English. We are in the process of procuring a new Learning Management System to be in place by July 2024. The system is expected to be able to host bilingual content which will enable staff to complete online courses in Welsh. Once this capability is in place, we will be compliant with Standards 124.

We will continue in developing a Welsh medium induction course over the next year. Once this work is complete, we will be compliant with Standard 129.

How we support Cymraeg 2050

Through our work in implementing and improving our Welsh language services, over the last year we have contributed to Welsh Government’s Cymraeg 2050 Strategy Action Plan for 2022/23 by:

• Supporting staff to develop their language skills for work purposes.
• Encouraging staff to use the Welsh language as part of their work.
• NRW Education Team promoting the Welsh language in all training events.
• NRW Education Team advise Welsh Government, supporting them to realise the Curriculum for Wales and the role of the Welsh natural environment within that.
• Assessing language skills for each new or vacant post, ensuring that we have staff with the Welsh language skills in the right roles and locations providing opportunities for people to use the language as part of their role and in dealing with our communities.
• Being proactive and promoting our Welsh language services.
• Operating bilingual social media accounts, promoting Welsh language culture and events to a wide audience, raising awareness that Welsh is a living language.
• Developing our digital services bilingually from the start.
• Consult and add to the List of Historic Place Names as part of our work.

How we support anti-racist Wales action plan

The Welsh Government has published the Anti-racist Wales Action Plan (ARWAP), with a vision of ‘A Wales which is Anti-racist by 2030’. ARWAP sets out to tackle institutional and structural racial inequalities in Wales in order to make ‘meaningful and measurable changes to the lives of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people by tackling racism’ and achieve ‘a Wales that is anti-racist by 2030’. 

Education and Welsh Language: More is done to promote access to the Welsh language by ethnic minority communities in the areas of education, language learning, the workplace and community activities. We support this action in the plan by:

• Supporting colleagues to develop their Welsh language skills, though not specifically targeting ethnic minority people, the courses are available to help all staff develop their language skills in work time across Wales. 
• Our Advanced Welsh courses has been awarded 'Workplace Class of the Year' with Coleg Gwent for 2022. Three of the Welsh learners happened to be from ethnically diverse backgrounds, respectively, including ‘other white’. 

Action plan 2022–23

The action plan for 2022-23 was comprehensive with 53 actions in total, out of the actions 23 were completed, 16 in progress and 6 ongoing, 8 not started. Some of the ongoing and not been completed actions are due to other work priorities. The ongoing and not started actions will form part of the action plan for 2023–24.

Action plan 2023-24

The priorities in our action plan for 2023- 24 will be:

• Continue to work with Environment Agency to ensure the landing pages on .Gov are available in Welsh.
• Develop the Floodline UK flood information service to be compliant with our Welsh language standards.
• Procure a new Learning Management System which will allow us to run online courses in Welsh.
• Continue to develop our Welsh medium Induction Training programme.
• Develop better ways of self-monitoring our compliance with the Standards.
• Develop our own Welsh Language Awareness training.

Conclusion

We are pleased with the progress we are making in implementing our Welsh language standards, with the number of our Welsh speaking staff increasing as well as the increase in the number of our staff who are developing their language skills for work purposes.

There are still some areas Standards we are not fully compliant with, and we are working to address these areas. Over the coming year we plan to look at ways of being more proactive in self-monitoring our compliance, this will help in mitigating some non-compliance areas.

We welcome feedback from customers on our services as this helps us in understanding their needs better and in developing future services better. As an organisation we are doing all we can to provide an active offer of a Welsh language service and in prompting customers to use our services in Welsh, with the aim of increasing their use. This work contributes towards the aim of Welsh Government’s Cymraeg 2050 Strategy and The Wellbeing Future Generations Act.

Hybrid working can at times prove to be more challenging in relation to the Welsh language, with some staff not having the same awareness in hearing the language spoken or seeing it on signage as in an office environment. With the number of our Welsh speaking staff increasing, as well as those developing their language skills, it is important we provide more opportunities for staff to work through the medium of Welsh across the organisation and a timely commitment in our Corporate Plan. How we work internally reflects our work externally and this will help in building those trusted relationships and sharing important messages with our Welsh speaking partners and customers.

Our Translation Team now has the capacity to be more creative in how they work and able to do so collaboratively helps to ensure the Welsh language is an important part of the work we do, rather than a translation at the end of a process. We want people to use our services and this way of working will hopefully encourage more use our services in Welsh as we have seen with the increase in the use of our Welsh language online services.

Appendix 1

Education and health team

Resources for educators and teachers

All education resources are available in Welsh on our webpage and on Hwb. New resources uploaded this financial year have included:

• Green Energy
• Wales Coast Path
• Sand dunes
• Teaching safe campfire and tool skills

Feedback on our resources: ‘Mae wastad yn ddefnyddiol i gael adnoddau parod yn y Gymraeg - mae nhw o safon uchel.’ (It is always useful to have resources ready in Welsh – they are of a high standard).

Working with others

Members from the team have worked in partnership with the following to promote the Welsh language and:

• Staywise Cymru to produce a bilingual Wales specific version of Staywise UK Blue Light website for emergency workers, education professionals, families, and learners to access personal safety learning resources.
• The Gwent Living Levels project – helping to develop bilingual learning resources for Guides, Brownies, and Rainbows Alien Invaders badge.
• Flood Awareness Wales to review our existing bi-lingual suite of resources.
• Sands of Life project team to produce a new suite of bi-lingual resources.

National campaigns and events

Both national campaigns in 2022/23 – Acorn Antics and Wales Outdoor Learning Week which we organise in partnership with the Wales Council for Outdoor Learning were run bilingually. Dedicated Welsh #’s for groups to engage through the medium of Welsh if they wish.

• #MiriMes
• #WythnosDysguAwyrAgored

Appendix 2

Flood warning & informing services statistics

Floodline

The table below shows overall there are still small percentages of Welsh Language customers.

	2019-2020*		2020-2021		2021-2022		2022-2023
	Cym	Eng	Cym	Eng	Cym	Eng	Cym	Eng
Floodline callers – language choice	307 (3.1%)	9,652	244 (4.1%)	5,713	176 (3.2%)	5,334	114 (4.4%)	2,473
Floodline callers – pre-recorded live warning information	95 (1.3%)	7,456	94 (2.4%)	3,789	59 (1.6%)	3,567	46 (2.9%)	1,533
Floodline callers – calls to Agents	25 (2%)	1,256	61 (5.3%)	1,067	58 (7.4%)	729	25 (5.3%)	443

Table 1: Callers to Floodline. *2019-2020 data is from July 2019 only.

Flood Warnings, Alerts and Flood Risk Services

	2019-2020		2020-2021		2021-2022		2022-2023
	Cym	Eng	Cym	Eng	Cym	Eng	Cym	Eng
Flood Warnings & Alerts webpage views	10,257 (0.95%)	1,067,767	6,771 (0.8%)	856,914	4,843 (0.5%)	1,024,469	2,971 (0.3%)	901,042
5 Day Flood Risk for Wales webpage views	489 (0.73%)	66,570	570 (0.3%)	174,150	346 (0.1%)	336,933	655 (0.2%)	335,049

Table 2: NRW Webpage Views

Appendix 3

Welsh Language Training

This year, we have 173 members of staff currently enrolled in Welsh Language training at various levels. This figure is up by 35 from last year.

Total	173	100%
Course	Learners 2022/23	Percentage
Entry	80	47%
Foundation	44	25%
Intermediate	18	10%
Advanced	29	17%
Proficiency	1	1%

 

Total	173	100%
Region	Learners 2022/23	Percentage
Cardiff	9	5%
Carmarthenshire	8	5%
Ceredigion/Powys	46	27%
Glamorgan	0	0%
Gwent	32	18%
North East	18	10%
North West	41	24%
Pembrokeshire	3	2%
Swansea Bay	13	7%
The Vale	0	0%
Cymraeg Gwaith (Self-taught option)	3	2%

Nant Gwrtheyrn

Six NRW staff members have attended intensive courses provided virtually and residentially by Nant Gwrtheyrn this year. These have not been included in the above as they are not currently enrolled on a course.

Nant Gwrtheyrn offer intensive courses for all abilities and some of these are free of charge through Work Welsh scheme.

Once funding has been confirmed by the Welsh Government for 2023/24 for Work Welsh courses, we have a few members of staff hoping to run NRW specific courses directly with Nant Gwrtheyrn due to the positive experience they had during their previous courses.

Learn Welsh

Over the last year, some of the Learn Welsh providers have offered face to face courses to its learners and some NRW staff members have returned to the classroom for their learning. However, majority of our staff have remained learning virtually, as it is easier to access and, environmentally friendly, which is important to NRW staff.

This year, we have also been able to offer a self-taught option to some of our staff. This is provided by Learn Welsh – Work Welsh. We particularly offered this to members of staff who knew they wouldn’t be able to commit to weekly courses on regular basis (due to work commitments, illness etc). This has proven to be successful method for these individuals.

Say Something in Welsh

Say Something in Welsh (SSiW) is a subscription we have now rolled out and offer to all our staff, whether they are on permanent or on short terms contacts. It is also a learning method encouraged by Learn Welsh. We also offer this as a stop gap for staff that are waiting to register for a Learn Welsh course.

Due to this, SSiW figures have not been included in the above stats as some learners that have registered for Mynediad/Entry courses have also registered for SSiW.

We currently have 26 learners enrolled on Say Something in Welsh.

Personal skills

For 2023/24, several personal skills sessions have been booked. These will be delivered bilingually. These will be advertised internally and open to all staff to attend. The sessions booked so far are

• Resilience and Wellbeing
• Having Honest Conversations

Yammer

Over the last year, we have been updating our Welsh language Yammer pages regularly. This is updated by the Welsh language training co-ordinator regularly with hints, tips, training recommendations and courses for NRW staff. This is a great way to communicate informally with NRW staff, and they are very responsive on there too.

• Dysgu Cymraeg
• Hyfforddiant Cymraeg

Appendix 4

Staff self assessment of Welsh Language Skills at March 2023

Date	No return completed	No language skills	Able to pronounce basic phrases and greetings	Able to construct basic sentences	Able to discuss some work matters confidently	Fluent Welsh speaker	Fluent in both spoken and written Welsh
March 2023	49 (2.1%)	98 (4.2%)	980 (41.8%)	469 (20%)	179 (7.6%)	223 (9.5%)	348(14.8%)
March 2022	43 (2%)	88 (3.9%)	942 (41.7%)	456 (20%)	175 (7.8%)	221 (9.8%)	334 (14.8%)
February 2021	109 (4.9%)	87(3.9%)	915(40.9%)	438 (19.6%)	153 (6.8%)	225 (10%)	310 (13.9%)
March 2020	134 (6.5%)	63 (3.1%)	820 (40.0%)	412 (20.1%)	136 (6.6%)	211 (10.3%)	275 (13.4%)

Headcount March 2023 = 2346 – Number and percentage of Welsh speakers in March 2023 = 571 (24.3%)

Headcount March 2022 = 2259 – Number and percentage of Welsh speakers in March 2022 = 555 (24.6%)

Headcount February 2021 = 2237 - Number and percentage of Welsh speakers in February 2021 = 535 (24%)

Headcount March 2020 = 2051 - Number and percentage of Welsh speakers in March 2020 = 486 (23.7%)

Welsh language skills by Directorate – March 2023

TOTAL	49	98	980	469	179	223	348	2346
Directorate	No Return Completed	No understanding of Welsh	Able to pronounce basic Welsh phrases and names	Able to construct basic Welsh sentences	Able to discuss some work matters confidently	Fluency in spoken Welsh	Fluency in spoken and written Welsh	Grand Total
CCC	4	4	29	20	10	11	41	119
CSD	4	2	40	34	5	12	23	120
EPP	7	27	278	139	56	48	66	621
FCS	3	14	83</p	36	15	16	23	190
OPS	31	51	550	240	93	136	195	1296

Welsh language skills by Age profile March 2023

Grand Total	49	98	980	469	179	223	348	2346
Age	No Return Completed	No understanding of Welsh	Able to pronounce basic Welsh phrases and names	Able to construct basic Welsh sentences	Able to discuss some work matters confidently	Fluency in spoken Welsh	Fluency in spoken and written Welsh	Grand Total
<20	1	0	1	0	1	1	0	4
22 - 29	9	17	89	32	13	19	66	245
30 - 39	9	21	206	113	41	54	105	549
40 - 49	12	26	314	164	60	75	77	728
50 - 59	13	27	299	124	51	55	69	638
60 +	5	7	71	36	13	19	31	182

 

Welsh language skills by sex – Full-Time/Part-Time Employees March 2023

Total	49	98	980	469	179	223	348	2346
Sex Full-Time Part-Time	No Return Completed	No understanding of Welsh	Able to pronounce basic Welsh phrases and names	Able to construct basic Welsh sentences	Able to discuss some work matters confidently	Fluency in spoken Welsh	Fluency in spoken and written Welsh	Grand Total
Female	23	48	432	246	95	95	159	1098
FT	15	42	334	182	68	68	127	836
PT	8	6	98	64	27	27	32	262
Male	26	50	548	223	84	128	189	1248
FT	26	48	517	209	79	114	179	1172
PT	-	2	31	14	5	14	10	76

Welsh language skills by each grade March 2023

Grade	No Return Completed	No understanding of Welsh	Able to pronounce basic Welsh phrases and names	Able to construct basic Welsh sentences	Able to discuss some work matters confidently	Fluency in spoken Welsh	Fluency in spoken and written Welsh	Grand Total
G1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
G2	8	8	27	13	6	10	13	85
G3	3	7	47	11	2	18	28	116
G4	12	14	140	53	17	41	65	342
G5	10	30	258	106	53	58	91	606
G6	7	18	252	150	50	50	73	600
G7	4	11	134	85	30	30	39	333
G8	2	2	78	33	13	9	22	159
G9	2	2	33	13	5	6	10	71
G10	-	1	1	1	-	-	1	4
G11	1	4	9	3	1	1	5	24
EXEC	-	1	1	2	1	-	1	6
Total	49	98	980	469	179	223	348	2346

Welsh language skills of new starters and leavers March 2023

	No Return Completed	No understanding of Welsh	Able to pronounce basic Welsh phrases and names	Able to construct basic Welsh sentences	Able to discuss some work matters confidently	Fluency in spoken Welsh	Fluency in spoken and written Welsh	Grand Total
Starters	36	24	111	37	23	39	18	288
Leavers	8	11	55	17	11	19	9	130