Deaf people’s hopes of a positive outcome from the Work and Pensions committee’s inquiry into Access to Work have received a significant boost with the news that the inquiry will now accept evidence in British Sign Language.
Deaf people who use BSL as their first language and rely on BSL interpreters at work have previously been at a disadvantage when it came to submitting information to the enquiry because they could only do so in written English.
Now, the inquiry has called for evidence in BSL, extending the deadline to Friday 1st August and producing a video in BSL which explains what kind of information they need. See the video below (click here for a written transcript).
For more information, go to: http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/news/access-to-work-bsl-call-for-evidence/
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pennybsl
June 30, 2014
Yes, but such access SHOULD be at the VERY BEGINNING of planning such an investigative process
Other Equality Strands would take into consideration this salient fact – again, government officials ignore us Deaf people. It is inexplicable that taxpayer-funded civil servants were ‘deaf to reason’.
Putting Deaf workers and their support into additional stress before the 20th June deadline while those who struggled with severely cropped AtW support had to find time to submit in English.
Those who lost jobs, got demoted, lost prestige due to the 30 hour rule and other hammering by AtW are entitled to compensation and a FULL apology from the DWP in writing.
All the best, BSL submissions.
Darren Townsend-Handscomb
June 30, 2014
The information from the Select Committee about giving evidence in BSL can be difficult to make sense of. I’ve summarised four of the main questions below, if you want to know more before recording and sending your evidence, go the DeafATW Updates page.
1. The Select Committee ask if possible that evidence in BSL is recorded with an interpretation into spoken English and/or subtitled. But if that’s not possible, they will get it interpreted.
2. The Select Committee website and translation says evidence a maximum of 3,000 words. They mean signs.
3. If you send your evidence in BSL, it is the translation into English that will be accepted as evidence. This means that parliamentary privilege doesn’t cover the BSL you recorded, and you should be careful about sharing it on Face Book etc.
4. Also an important reminder: BSL users submitting evidence already translated into written English (e.g. working with an interpreter) must send their evidence by Friday 18th July. This date hasn’t changed. Only BSL users sending their evidence in BSL can send it later, up to Friday 1st August.
Cheers Darren Townsend-Handscomb RSLI (DeafATW)
Cathy Alexander
June 30, 2014
This is an interesting development: ATW in turmoil. We should not really be in this position should we? How is it that deaf people are grappling with such a situation? Why can the Government not leave ATW alone? It always seems to be those with disabilities, of whatever nature, who scrape the bottom of the barrel.
The limit for “wording” is 3000 according to Darren, but this is meant to be signs. The difficulty here is that words and signs do not match!! As a result of the Grammatical structure of both languages, means one sign in BSL could equate to 4 words in English!!! This means the limit is obsolete, according to this limit.
The difference between the languages may mean that a great deal of evidence may not be taken into account, this would be disempowering at the discussion and consultation level and may mean we deafies do not actually get what we are hoping to achieve in the end.
So do not be too surprised if, when all this debating is finished, we do not have a much better system, where access to work REALLY means access to work!
Darren Townsend-Handscomb
June 30, 2014
Hi Cathy, you’re right that English translations of 3,000 signs may be a lot more than 3,000 words. I have explained this to the Select Conmittee, and said it is ok.
I understand politically and linguistically why people want to send evidence in BSL, but think Deaf BSL users have more control over their evidence if they work with an interpreter / translator to work from BSL to written English. This means they can control the structure, nuances, how’s it’s translated, and make sure it’s under 3,000 words.
Cheers Darren Townsend-Handscomb (DeafATW)