Mr. Aled Roberts:

Complaints have been increasing although they have significantly reduced in the period since Covid, mainly because the connectivity between public bodies and the public has been much reduced. However, it is important I explain that, unlike Welsh language schemes, if somebody makes a complaint to us, we have a duty to accept the complaint, provided it is a valid one. There is no requirement on members of the public to complain to the public body itself before they come to us. As more public bodies have become subject to the standards, that has created a problem because, and I make this point in the statement, sufficient resources have to be given to the commissioner's office to ensure the capacity is there to deal with complaints.

We also have a situation where there was an understanding between the government and the previous commissioner regarding the maximum number of officials that could be accommodated or employed by the commissioner. We currently have a ceiling of 46 employees and there is a division of roles between those employees who are within the regulatory field, dealing with standards and language schemes, and those who have responsibility for promotion.

What happened over time is that the number of complaints increased and the amount of time it took to deal with a complaint increased as well. That caused dissatisfaction with the complainants and the public bodies regarding the amount of time it was taking to resolve matters. Increasing resources were having to be placed within the regulatory teams, which meant there was a lot of criticism of a reduction in the amount of promotional work that was being undertaken by the commissioner's office. That transfer of resources led to the Welsh Government's White Paper, going back about three years, in which it questioned whether there was too much regulation and not enough promotion, for all intents and purposes.

Just prior to my assuming the role in 2019, we introduced an enforcement code, as we call it, which gave guidance to individual officers as to whether it was appropriate for a full investigation to be undertaken. We had to accept each and every complaint that was being delivered. To give an example, there could have been a complaint that a circumflex had been missed from a letter on a sign. Under the old regime, it was likely there would have been a full investigation which would have taken 15 or 18 months to resolve, with a report at the end suggesting the public body replace the sign, when in reality the sign had been replaced 14 months earlier because the body had accepted it had breached the standards. When individual officers receive a complaint, our new enforcement code allows them to make a recommendation to me personally, provided the complaint is valid, as to whether to undertake a full investigation. They can take into account the public body's previous record with regard to language, and they can look at whether the public body accepts there has been a breach of standards and what action it has taken to resolve that breach. The officers may say an investigation is not going to gain anything and suggest I do not investigate in this case. That has led to some friction between me and some language campaigners who have felt I have an obligation to investigate all cases fully, but the Welsh Language Tribunal has upheld all my decisions on the basis I have been reasonable and proportionate in exercising my powers, because the measure gives me discretion as to how many cases I investigate or what types of cases I investigate.

While some of the language campaigners were concerned we were going to be investigating fewer issues and fewer complaints, this has allowed me to release some resources, which means I can then undertake investigations of my own volition. My monitoring officers might come back to me saying they have been having discussions with a public body now for 12 months and are not making any progress whatsoever on the issue, that the body, in their estimation, is in breach of the language standards that have been placed upon it, and ask me what I want to do. They would recommend, having looked at all the other tools available to them, that this is a matter I should investigate.

The real difference between standards and language schemes is the only power the commissioner had previously with regard to schemes, and still has for those bodies that are still operating language schemes, was to make recommendations to the body itself, which in some instances might not be implemented or might be ignored. Now, once there is an adjudication made by me, I place enforcement measures on the body. Those enforcement measures range between my saying it has to do this by such-and-such a date and a situation where I say to the public body I want it to produce an action plan showing me it will have resolved this issue within such-and-such a period. If the reality is it is a much bigger issue for it to get to grips with, I might I say I want it to do this by such-and-such a date. The real need then is the commissioner's office puts sufficient resources into monitoring those enforcement measures and those action plans.

If I am honest, in the early days of standards, once the enforcement measures were actually imposed, there was very little monitoring by the commissioner's officers as to whether they had been successfully implemented. I became aware there were instances where people were having to complain about the same thing that had been investigated 18 months previously and which should really have been resolved. We have now put some resources into monitoring those enforcement and action plans, and I get regular reports confirming whether the plans are actually being implemented. If they are not being implemented, then the public bodies know there will be further consequences to those actions. Fortunately, to date the threat of public embarrassment for breach of the language standards has been sufficient to ensure most public bodies have ensured all the enforcement measures have been implemented.