British Sign Language
Councillor Dewhirst to move:
This Council passionately believes that good communication lies at the heart of a civilised society and furthermore believes that inclusion is a vital part of a fair society.
To that end this Council realises that there is a large number of British Sign Language (BSL) users in Devon and so offers Deaf people an on-line interpretation service to enable people whose first language is BSL to communicate and interact with our Council.
The BBC offer in-vision BSL interpretations of some popular and topical programmes however it is not provided for the local and live news services. They do however offer the option for subtitles to be used for their programmes for Deaf people or people with limited hearing. Sadly, Deaf people find this service less than helpful and often very confusing - try watching the news with the sound off and just subtitles. ITV offer no services for Deaf people. Many Deaf people in Devon wish to keep up with the news in our County and wish that the BBC and ITV offered a similar interpretation service to our Council. This currently happens in America and most western countries.
In a spirit of inclusion this Council resolves to ask the BBC and ITV to start a process of full inclusion by asking the Chief Executive to write to the Director General of the BBC to ask for Spotlight South West to be signed in BSL and to the Managing Director of ITV Westcountry to ask for West Country News to be signed in BSL.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
Councillor Dewhirst MOVED and Councillor Connett SECONDED;
This Council passionately believes that good communication lies at the heart of a civilised society and furthermore believes that inclusion is a vital part of a fair society.
To that end this Council realises that there is a large number of British Sign Language (BSL) users in Devon and so offers Deaf people an on-line interpretation service to enable people whose first language is BSL to communicate and interact with our Council.
The BBC offer in-vision BSL interpretations of some popular and topical programmes however it is not provided for the local and live news services. They do however offer the option for subtitles to be used for their programmes for Deaf people or people with limited hearing. Sadly, Deaf people find this service less than helpful and often very confusing - try watching the news with the sound off and just subtitles. ITV offer no services for Deaf people. Many Deaf people in Devon wish to keep up with the news in our County and wish that the BBC and ITV offered a similar interpretation service to our Council. This currently happens in America and most western countries.
In a spirit of inclusion this Council resolves to ask the BBC and ITV to start a process of full inclusion by asking the Chief Executive to write to the Director General of the BBC to ask for Spotlight South West to be signed in BSL and to the Managing Director of ITV Westcountry to ask for West Country News to be signed in BSL.
In accordance with Standing Order 6(6) the Notice of Motion was referred, without discussion, to the Cabinet for consideration.