Chamber and committees

Do you mean just in education terms—in relation to additional support and so on?

In responding to that question, I will make a number of points, the first of which is to do with the area of linguistic significance, which is really critical. That measure does not exist right now, and it will allow a more joined-up approach to be taken to the work that is required.

Much progress has been made in the past 20 years, but the focus on Gaelic plans and on education has perhaps not always given due recognition to the importance of people and communities. At the end of the day, Gaelic thrives in a community, so acknowledging that, in a particular area, multiple agencies and bodies will be responsible and accountable to the community is one significant change.

I completely agree with what Professor McLeod said about outcomes—it is always about outcomes. In that regard, it seems quite important that we are discussing the issue after yesterday’s publication of the census results, which indicated that there has been an overall increase in Gaelic skills. That is fantastic and should be celebrated. However, for the first time, Gaelic is now spoken by less than 50 per cent of people in the Western Isles, and that should be a wake-up call in relation to how we approach supporting such communities.

That is why it is essential for the bill to focus on outcomes. The outcome that I would like to see is a breadth and a depth of Gaelic. By breadth, I mean the number of speakers, and by depth, I mean the extent to which it is a living, breathing language. In other words, I want Gaelic to be not just an academic language of the classroom but a language that is used by people who work in communities—by plumbers, electricians, teachers, shopkeepers and so on. It is currently used in that way in communities, and we need to ensure that there is a community-wide approach to preserving the language.

I have been spending some time trying to understand the process that the bill has been through and some of the decisions that have been made. As you said, there is a challenging environment. The overall final cost is £694,000, but I would expect there to be a process to understand where any additional costs can be absorbed because of a refocus on different areas and where additional funding might be required.

You will be aware, perhaps, that broadcasting is a reserved area. A lot of work is going on at the moment in the House of Lords on amendments to the Media Bill to give BBC Alba and MG Alba equity with Welsh-language broadcasting. Welsh-language broadcasting has tens of millions of pounds, whereas Gaelic broadcasting is, in the words of the sector, on a shoestring budget.

I suggest that the financial memorandum alone is not the sum of all money that needs to be brought in to meet our objectives when it comes to Gaelic.

Got you; yes, I understand. I would expect public bodies—particularly in the areas of linguistic significance—to pay due regard to Gaelic and I would perhaps expect that of public bodies that were not otherwise doing that. I do not see that as a significant additional cost. For example, if you think of a responsibility on a public body to have staff who can answer queries on Gaelic, it might be that, in that area, there are already Gaelic speakers working in the organisation. That would be the case, more likely than not, in the Western Isles. Therefore, where there are responsibilities on public bodies, I would expect them to consider what that means for them.

I think that the point is that nearly all those public bodies are already producing Gaelic-language plans. They are already engaged in work to consider the requirements on them under the current legislation and to respond to those. Therefore, there is already a legal requirement on many, if not all, of them. Douglas, do you want to say more about what public bodies are already required to do, because that is quite important in relation to where there might be additional costs?

That goes back to part of the conversation that we have just had. In a local authority area or a public body, decisions are already being made. As an example, Highlands and Islands Enterprise will already make decisions on what role it has with regard to Gaelic. There will already be some expenditure. I know that the committee had representatives from HIE here earlier. It already makes those decisions, precisely because of the economic opportunities that come from Gaelic. Therefore, I think that the bill is doing a number of things. It is refining what those responsibilities are, but we are not in 2004, when, for the first time ever, we were suddenly expecting public bodies to have due regard to Gaelic—they already do.

The same goes for Highland Council, which I am intimately acquainted with. Highland Council has a number of Gaelic-medium units and schools. The elected representatives there will make decisions about how to spend their budget. A number of new schools are currently spending money on expanding provision in Fort William and Inverness.

The Scottish Government is not always calling the shots, as it were, and making demands of those organisations. Those organisations make the decisions right now, off the back of the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005, and they often go further because they see an economic, social or educational opportunity. The point that I am trying to make is that there is not a massive suite of new requirements and regulations as though those public bodies are not, in many cases, already doing work that is important. It gives it a legal backing. Does that make sense?

I think that legislation is needed. There has been a groundswell of support and there is an appetite for legislation that reinforces the responsibilities that public bodies and the Scottish ministers have. On the key point about communities, the policy for designating areas of linguistic significance does not currently exist. To that end, I think that legislation is required, but I will keep making the point that the legislation has a focused aim—we are not expecting it to do everything.

The primary measure will be what is captured in the census. I do not know whether this exists already, but we might need to think about how to go beyond the idea of skills to survey the depth of language. That would be interesting. The Government should have targets for reversing depopulation in general, which I think would boost Gaelic.

The more concrete aim that I am conscious of is that some of the most critical agencies and organisations have their own targets. I think that the Government should have a target of ensuring that they meet their targets. For example, MG Alba has performance and viewing number targets for BBC Alba, Speak Gaelic has targets for Gaelic learning and Sabhal Mòr Ostaig has targets for student intake. Although it will be a movable feast, we could consider how to formalise the devolved and delegated targets and make them Government targets, because the risk of making targets that sit above all those is that they might undermine the targets that already exist in those organisations. Local authorities should also have targets for Gaelic-medium education in primary schools.

There may be work for us to do in formalising our commitment to support those organisations to meet their targets. If MG Alba meets its viewing targets, if Sabhal Mòr Ostaig meets its intake targets and if Speak Gaelic and local authorities meet their targets, we will be some way towards seeing census figures continue to increase.

—in terms of young people leaving Gaelic-medium education. I am a product of Gaelic-medium education, and I did quite well in my advanced higher Gaelic exam, but I would not count myself as being native fluent in that regard.

For me, an aim and an objective should be to try to ensure that children are excelling. However, that speaks to the bigger challenge, which is that genuine fluency has to happen outside the classroom. It is all about the opportunities that a person has through youth work, fun, family and then on to employment.

As English speakers, we all know that fluency in academic terms alone is not always sufficient to ensure that a young person continues with that fluency throughout the rest of their life, to perhaps pass it on to the next generation. I absolutely agree with CnaG and its aim of 90 per cent functional fluency—although I would like it to be 100 per cent.

It gives a legal recognition. Scots has not had the legal recognition that the bill establishes, and it has not benefited from formal support through legislation. There is a big difference between formal support and formalising that expectation everywhere.