Social Inclusion (ISSN: 2183–2803) 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 45–55 DOI: 10.17645/si.v9i1.3549 Article Language Provision in the Scottish Public Sector: Recommendations to Promote Inclusive Practice Róisín McKelvey 1,2 1 Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA, Scotland; E-Mail: [email protected] 2 School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9YL, Scotland Submitted: 30 July 2020 | Accepted: 28 September 2020 | Published: 14 January 2021 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 find- ings and are highlighted in this article. Keywords education; equality law; healthcare; interpreting; language provision; policy recommendations; public services; Scotland; translation Issue This article is part of the issue “Social Inclusion and Multilingualism: The Impact of Linguistic Justice, Economy of Language and Language Policy” edited by László Marácz (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands / L. N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Kazakhstan) and Zsombor Csata (Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania / Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary). © 2021 by the author; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu- tion 4.0 International License (CC BY). 1. Introduction guage support available in key Scottish public services thus necessitated analysing the legal and policy norms Public sector service providers in Scotland have in recent that guide such provision in the public sector. years developed language support, principally available The criminal justice system, healthcare boards and in the form of interpreting and translation services, in local authorities were identified as most appropriate for response to diverse communication needs within the inclusion in this service review, because they deliver Scottish population. The language-related legal and pol- public sector, rather than private sector or third sec- icy frameworks within which Scottish public service tor, provision across a range of domains that are per- providers operate, which determine the equality obliga- tinent to the needs of the Scottish population: access tions to which they are subject, have been established at to justice, healthcare, housing, social care and educa- the supranational and national levels; the latter by both tion, among others. This provision includes public-facing UK and Scottish political institutions. Evaluating the lan- services, which necessarily involve communication and Social Inclusion, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 1, Pages 45–55 45 interaction with service users, and therefore engages mendations to improve provision across the public sec- language issues. Since the chosen research settings tor. These recommendations will be summarised in this were Edinburgh and Glasgow, the following public ser- article, in the hope that they may be useful to public vice providers were selected for evaluation: the Scottish service providers that wish to promote more inclusive Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) and the interpreting approaches in service delivery and minimise language and translation services for NHS Lothian, NHS Greater barriers that may hinder equal access. Glasgow and Clyde (NHS GGC), the City of Edinburgh Council (the CEC) and Glasgow City Council (GCC). 2. The Place of Language in UK Equality Law Scottish education services fall within the remit of local authorities and so the role of language support in schools In order to evaluate provision in Scotland for those was considered accordingly, with interviews carried out whose access to public services depends on language with the English as an additional language (EAL) services support, it was necessary to analyse the legal norms developed by the CEC and GCC (for a more detailed dis- established at the supranational and domestic levels cussion see McKelvey, 2017). which determine the equality obligations that service In the process of evaluating the language provision providers must fulfil. A range of legal and policy norms made available by the aforementioned public service are relevant to this research topic (McKelvey, 2020) providers, the policy and strategy documents that they but, for the purposes of this article, the key one to have developed were considered and a series of inter- highlight is the Equality Act (UK Government, 2010). views was carried out with managers from each of the This is a significant piece of domestic UK legislation, selected services, in which operational details, language which consolidated and replaced several earlier anti- demand and challenges, both pragmatic and attitudinal, discrimination laws, such as the Sex Discrimination Act encountered in service delivery were discussed. A semi- (UK Government, 1975), the Race Relations Act (UK structured interview format was followed because, while Government, 1976) and the Disability Discrimination Act there were necessarily slight variations in the interview (UK Government, 1995), to safeguard against discrimi- schedule according to service provider (due to opera- nation for nine ‘protected characteristics’: age, disabil- tional differences in the source and nature of language ity, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, provision, for example), a broadly comparable structure race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation (UK was desired, in order to facilitate a cross-service evalua- Government, 2010, c. 1(4)). tion of provision. This approach to the interview process Although language has been recognised as a pro- also provided a degree of openness, which allowed par- tected characteristic in a number of supranational instru- ticipants to offer insights and discuss experiences of ser- ments, for instance the Universal Declaration of Human vice delivery as appropriate. Rights (United Nations, 1948, Article 2) and the European It was important to reflect on the research pro- Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; Council of Europe, cess itself, in terms of researcher positionality, poten- 2010, Article 14), in addition to the establishment tial limitations and the professional context in which of a range of language-specific rights, such as those the interviews occurred. These issues are discussed related to the criminal justice system in the International in greater depth elsewhere (McKelvey, 2020), but it Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (United Nations, should be noted here that the interview-data-as-topic 1966, Articles 9 and 14), this is not the case in UK law. approach (De Fina & Perrino, 2011) was adopted in In fact, although the UK is subject to the ECHR, which analysing findings; participants’ responses were viewed was incorporated into domestic law by the Human Rights as co-constructed, influenced by the presence of the Act (UK Government, 1998), it has not ratified Optional researcher and the context in which the interviews Protocol No. 12 (Council of Europe, 2010), which includes occurred. Data arising from the interviews were also a general prohibition of discrimination based on listed analysed using the symptomatic approach (Block, 2000; identity markers, including language, association with Kvale, 1996), which considers interview responses to a national minority and national origin, and addition- reflect the context of the interview and participants’ rela- ally prohibits any discrimination by public authorities tionship to the research topic. This was particularly rele- on those grounds (Council of Europe, 2010, Protocol vant to the research project because experiences of ser- No. 12, Article 1(2)). Article 14 of the ECHR was, how- vice delivery and attitudes towards language were signif- ever, brought into UK law by the Human Rights Act icant considerations. (UK Government, 1998), and prohibits any discrimination In addition to the research interviews, strategy based on those same identity markers that would hin- documents produced by each of the selected service der the enjoyment of other rights that are protected by providers and quantitative data concerning demand for the ECHR. language support were analysed, in order to review Nevertheless, despite these examples