Abstract

Public service providers in Scotland have developed language support, largely in the form of interpreting and translation, to meet the linguistic needs of those who cannot access their services in English. Five core public sector services were selected for inclusion in a research project that focused on the aforementioned language provision and related equality issues: the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service, NHS Lothian, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, the City of Edinburgh Council and Glasgow City Council. The frameworks within which these public service providers operate—namely, the obligations derived from supranational and domestic legal and policy instruments—were analysed, as was the considerable body of standards and strategy documents that has been produced, by both national organisations and local service providers, in order to guide service delivery. Although UK equalities legislation has largely overlooked allochthonous languages and their speakers, this research found that the public service providers in question appear to regard the provision of language support as an obligation related to the Equality Act (UK Government, 2010). Many common practices related to language support were also observed across these services, in addition to shared challenges, both attitudinal and practical. A series of recommendations regarding improvements to language provision in the public sector emerged from the research findings and are highlighted in this article.

Highlights

  • Public sector service providers in Scotland have in recent years developed language support, principally available in the form of interpreting and translation services, in response to diverse communication needs within the Scottish population

  • Since the chosen research settings were Edinburgh and Glasgow, the following public service providers were selected for evaluation: the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) and the interpreting and translation services for NHS Lothian, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHS GGC), the City of Edinburgh Council and Glasgow City Council (GCC)

  • Scottish education services fall within the remit of local authorities and so the role of language support in schools was considered with interviews carried out with the English as an additional language (EAL) services developed by the City of Edinburgh Council (the City of Edinburgh Council (CEC)) and GCC

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Summary

Introduction

Public sector service providers in Scotland have in recent years developed language support, principally available in the form of interpreting and translation services, in response to diverse communication needs within the Scottish population. The criminal justice system, healthcare boards and local authorities were identified as most appropriate for inclusion in this service review, because they deliver public sector, rather than private sector or third sector, provision across a range of domains that are pertinent to the needs of the Scottish population: access to justice, healthcare, housing, social care and education, among others This provision includes public-facing services, which necessarily involve communication and interaction with service users, and engages language issues. A semistructured interview format was followed because, while there were necessarily slight variations in the interview schedule according to service provider (due to operational differences in the source and nature of language provision, for example), a broadly comparable structure was desired, in order to facilitate a cross-service evaluation of provision This approach to the interview process provided a degree of openness, which allowed participants to offer insights and discuss experiences of service delivery as appropriate. These recommendations will be summarised in this article, in the hope that they may be useful to public service providers that wish to promote more inclusive approaches in service delivery and minimise language barriers that may hinder equal access

The Place of Language in UK Equality Law
Language Needs in the Research Setting
Parallels and Common Practice across Services
Practical and Ethical Challenges Encountered by Service Providers
The Scope for Collaborative Approaches in the Public Sector
Findings
Conclusion
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