Planning a Bilingual Workforce

Tender description

The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 has created a Public Services Board for every local authority area in Wales to ensure that public bodies work together to create a better future for the people of Wales. Gwynedd and Anglesey work together as one Board. The counties of Conwy and Denbigh also work together as one Board and the local authorities of Wrexham and Flintshire. There are therefore three Public Service Boards in North Wales. The membership of the Boards here includes statutory membership e.g. the Local Authorities, Fire and Rescue Authority, Health Board, Natural Resources Wales but also members such as North Wales Police, further education institutions, representatives of the third sector, National Park etc. The Act is a law that puts the people of Wales at the centre of everything that public services do to improve Wales economically, socially, environmentally and culturally, and the sustainable development principle is at its heart. This means that public services need to work in a way that improves the well-being of people today without doing anything that could make things worse for future generations. The Act highlights seven national well-being goals and five ways of working in order to give public bodies a common purpose. It also tries to ensure that we are better at making decisions by placing a duty on organizations to think about the long term, to work together and to consider people of all ages when solving and preventing problems. There is more information on the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales website. The Welsh language is a priority for all of the Public Service Boards here in North Wales, and more information can be found in our Well-being Plans for 2023-2028. North Wales Public Services Boards have recognised that planning a workforce that is suitable for the future is a national challenge, and here in North Wales, the requirements for suitable language skills to offer a bilingual service to our residents are very important. Recent discussions in the Welsh language sub-group of the Gwynedd and Anglesey Public Services Board (PSB) have highlighted recruitment and up-skilling barriers, which are very similar in each of the organisations. There is a risk in this situation that there is increasing pressure internally to lower the essential Welsh language level of jobs in order to try to attract applicants. That in turn causes real concern in terms of its impact on the provision of services that are suitable for our residents for the future. The three Public Services Boards serving North Wales (Gwynedd and Anglesey, Conwy and Denbigh, Flintshire and Wrexham) have come together through funding from the Welsh Government to work together to support the delivery of our well-being plans across communities and to nurture our strategic capability across the region. This project will help organisations within the PSB to understand the key issues regarding the recruitment of Welsh speakers. Please refer to additional documents for full brief requirements