Gaelic Language Plan 2021-26: Public Consultation

We wanted to find out what you thought about our draft Gaelic Language Plan. We asked you to rate your level of agreement for each of the plan's core activities and let us know if you thought we were missing anything. 

As a public authority, a duty is placed on Police Scotland to publish an updated Gaelic Language Plan under the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005.

A total of 6,753 responses were received. This includes:

• 5268 responses to the English language version of the consultation;
• 1485 responses to the British Sign Language (BSL) version; and
• 13 responses were received in Gaelic.

A variety of diversity monitoring information relating to the age, race, gender, disability and long-term conditions of individuals was gathered. This data was used throughout the process to enhance our reach and communications towards stakeholders and population sub-groups. 

Around 75% of respondents did not agree that Police Scotland should have a Gaelic Language Plan. Main reasons provided by respondents for this were: 

• Government interference and politically driven;
• Not a job for the police with resources better spent on core role;
• Inappropriate due to the small number of Gaelic speakers in Scotland who almost all speak English; and
• Other languages (Polish, Urdu, Doric etc) were more worthy of this focus.

We acknowlegde that many people who responded to our consultation disgareed with the premise of having a Gaelic Language Plan. However, legislation requires Police Scotland to have a plan and to take action to adopt and promote Gaelic language in service delivery.

We have set out below the main activities we proposed within our consultation and the analysis of feedback gathered through open text responses.

Gaelic Language Plan Development and Implementation Group

We asked respondents what they thought this group could do to enhance and develop Police Scotland's approach to using Gaelic language. Feedback included: 

• Working with schools and Gaelic community groups to increase education provision/community engagement. 
• Recruiting more Gaelic speaking officers and staff, focussing efforts solely in geographical areas of Scotland where Gaelic is already commonly spoken.
• Learning from police services in Wales about dual language operations. 
• Having a way for Gaelic speakers to identify our officers and staff who speak Gaelic. 

Increasing our use of Gaelic language in our community messaging, communications and liaison 

We asked respondents what they thought we could do to enhance the profile of Gaelic language in our community messaging. Feedback included: 

• Evolve our written communications with all or some being available in English as well as Gaelic. 
• Effectively utilising our Gaelic speaking officers and staff and having a way for them to be identified (e.g. a pin badge). 
• Bi-lingual posts on social media accounts. 
• Focusing community messaging in Gaelic through media already familiar with the Gaelic speaking community, such as BBC Alba and BBC Radio nan Gaidheal.
• Mixed views as to whether community messaging in Gaelic should be a national or more targeted to areas with high concentrations of Gaelic speakers.

Using our policies, procurement and branding to support Gaelic language 

We asked respondents about how we should utilise our assets and policies to support and enhance Gaelic language. Feedback included: 

• Develop a policy around recruiting Gaelic speakers and deploying them in mostly Gaelic speaking areas.
• More officers to learn Gaelic, supported by Police Scotland as their employer, to do so.
• Develop a greater Police Scotland presence on mainstream Gaelic media and social media.
• Partnership working and committing to attending community events for engagement with the Gaelic speaking community.

Integrating Gaelic language in our campaigns 

We asked respondents what their campaign priorities would be for any future campaigns in Gaelic. Feedback included: 

• Water safety, road safety, child safety, domestic abuse, rural crime, drink/drug driving, safety outdoors, countryside code, drug use, bike safety.
• Campaigns to improve engagement with schools (Gaelic schools in particular).
• Increased Gaelic content in Police Scotland campaigns will result in many Gaelic words and phrases becoming more familiar to members of the public.
• Some respondents suggested including Gaelic in posters and social media content rather than full campaigns.
• No consensus view on whether Gaelic campaigns should be national or directed where the language is more frequently used.

Any other comments or anything gaps within the proposed plan

We asked respondents for any other feedback about the proposed plan. Feedback included: 

• Need for a cost-benefit analysis to understand which parts of the plan derive the best value for money.
• Some said the focus of the plan should be aligned geographically with the concentration of Gaelic speakers.

Police Scotland do not consider that the public consultation has suggested any requirement for a fundamental change to the proposed plan. The existing plan is sufficiently flexible to consider many of the points raised by respondents.

Police Scotland will continue to take on board the feedback we have received in this consultation to improve the accessibility of our services in the future. We work hard to ensure language is not a barrier for anyone who needs us. Alongside this work, we will continue to support the Gaelic language, so that it continues to be visible and audible throughout our organisation and within the diverse communities we serve.

If you have questions, or need to access the results in a different way, please email PPCWDiversityUnit@Scotland.pnn.police.uk.