Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): I welcome Iain Greenway, Tommy McAuley and Gerard Flynn from the sign language policy and legislation branch. Iain will make a brief opening statement, and we will then get to questions from members.

Thank you, Iain. Go ahead.

Mr Iain Greenway (Department for Communities): Thank you, Chair and Committee. You have introduced us, so I can skip my first paragraph. We are grateful for the opportunity to provide a further briefing on the Sign Language Bill.

The Department is aware that the deaf community is waiting with great patience for the delivery of the legislation, which recognises both British Sign Language (BSL) and Irish Sign Language (ISL) as languages of Northern Ireland. It also places a duty on the Department to promote the further development of deaf culture and guarantees access to public information services of the prescribed organisations. The Committee had requested information and documents after its meeting on 25 September. The Department has provided updates on the status of each request in our written briefing, and we are, of course, happy to provide further updates this morning. I hope that you found the Department's written material useful in your deliberations, and we are happy to provide clarity on any of the information provided or any other issues that the Committee may wish to raise or examine under the Bill.

The Department's written briefing highlights the fact that, alongside the Bill, statutory guidance and regulations will add detail on how prescribed organisations can meet their statutory duties under the Bill through their sign language action plans, which are nicely called "SLAPs". In addition, the current refresh of the sign language framework and strategy will provide further detail on how we will develop the infrastructure of support and outline in greater detail how the policy intent of the Bill will be realised over the lifespan of that framework. That will all build on the contents of the draft 2016 framework for sign language.

We are cognisant of the fact that the draft 2016 framework was not approved during the suspension of the Assembly, but much has been delivered by the Department and others to contribute to or realise its nine objectives. That work has helped to realise the statutory duties around greater accessibility to which the Bill commits. For example, we frequently refer to "access to services", beginning with access to information. Key to that is an adequate supply of interpreters, which was an objective in the draft framework. In the past couple of months, the Department's funding for the Foyle Deaf Association has realised the qualification and registration of four BSL interpreters, one trainee BSL interpreter, three ISL interpreters and one trainee ISL interpreter. The Foyle Deaf Association's premises in Derry/Londonderry is one of two deaf hubs, — the other being in Belfast — that were envisaged by objective 4 of the framework. The Department's funding of the Foyle Deaf Association's premises has allowed it to focus on its core mission as a deaf-led training centre and to develop the delivery of an interpreter training programme.

Linked to that objective and the objective of developing the academic and research base for Northern Ireland sign language in our universities, students have commenced the second year of a two-year MA in sign language interpretation and translation at Queen's University Belfast. The unique student cohort, which contains a blend of deaf and hearing students, BSL and ISL and the existing registered interpreters will not only further increase interpreter capacity but add to the development of our academic base. That is in addition to a DFC-funded postdoctoral position and the co-funding of three PhD studentships by the Ulster Society for Promoting the Education of the Deaf and the Blind.

The Department invests up to £250,000 annually in its family signing programme, which is an objective in the draft framework. An independent review of that programme is being taken forward by Professor Byrne from Queen's University. We have rehearsed in previous briefings how the Department and others swung into action during the early days of the COVID pandemic to ensure that briefings and engagement on all public health messages were accessible to the deaf community. The best route for providing interpreting services in order to fully meet post-Bill requirements is being assessed, building on all of that progress to date.

The refreshed strategy will set out information on how the Bill's requirements and duties will be realised, including the infrastructure of support that is necessary to deliver on the intent of the legislation. Objectives in the framework will be framed as outcomes, reflecting the greater certainty that the legislation will bring.

The Department is taking forward a co-design exercise with representatives of the deaf community through the sign language partnership group. Other Departments are also represented on that group. It will identify priority areas to inform the final outcomes of the refreshed framework. To that end, an initial focus group has been held with the deaf community in Belfast, ahead of a series of events across Northern Ireland in the run-up to Christmas.

Priority areas for consideration as framework outcomes include the 2016 objectives that I referred to. The following additional themes are emerging: support for deafblind people; support for deaf children in educational settings; support for children of deaf adults (CODAs); the development of a Belfast deaf hub; access to services; and the promotion of BSL, ISL and deaf culture.

I appreciate that the Committee has much to consider, so I draw my opening remarks to a conclusion to allow us to cover as much ground as the Committee wishes this morning.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Thank you, Iain. That was useful. I have a couple of questions before I go to members.

Given the evidence that the Committee has received and the discussions that it has had — I am sure that you have been following them — what potential amendments, if any, is the Department considering? The issue of:

has come up extensively. The initial reporting period has also come up. There will be interim reporting, along with the five-year report. Given the evidence to the Committee that you have seen, what amendments are you considering?

Mr Greenway: I will start and then pass to Tommy. We are looking at what may be amended regarding the "one person" issue, always with an intention to consult widely. We are engaging with the Office of the Legislative Counsel (OLC) on getting the right wording in the Bill. We will need to go back to the Minister, who will then need to go to the Executive, if the amendments are to be Executive amendments.

We have also been looking at the line:

That is at the very end of clause 2. There can be much debate backwards and forwards, and there are different definitions of children with different disabilities etc. We are looking at that pragmatically to try to tie the definition of children in the Bill to a definition that is already in legislation, rather than coming up with something different. That amendment would be a reasonably technical one to realise the intent of the current wording.

In addition, we have been looking at when the first review should be done and at whether we should keep a backstop date in the legislation or prescribe a full-stop date. We have found one very technical point in clause 7 that may need some work, but addressing that will probably sit better in the clause-by-clause scrutiny as it is very detailed.

Is there anything that I have overlooked, Tommy?

Mr Tommy McAuley (Department for Communities): The major points have been covered.

Iain referred to the definition of a child in clause 2 as being someone under 19 years of age. As Iain mentioned, our family sign language programme is the subject of a review by Professor Byrne in Queen's. The whole programme will be reported on at that stage. We are listening to our partners in the sign language partnership group, who deliver that programme and have referenced their preference to raise the age from 19 to 21 to reflect the Northern Ireland children and young person's strategy when it comes to disabled children accessing services.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): There are a lot of strategies and regulations that refer to the age of 25, including those for looked-after children. There is merit in that, so I point you in that direction.

Mr McAuley: We await some input on that from the National Deaf Children's Society (NDCS), which flagged it up. We have asked it to come back to us with a rationale for changing the age to 21 or 25.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): The last question from me for now — I am keen to get to members — is about clause 4. You state in the briefing:

The need for children not to feel isolated in schools and to have support has been repeatedly mentioned — you have mentioned it — as has the potential for schools to be a game changer in relation to awareness and all of that.

They are framing this in terms of whether it should not be prescribed, but, if the Education Authority (EA) is a prescribed organisation, does that not indicate that the Department of Education should also be one? If schools are not prescribed, is it possible that they will not need to follow guidance even though they are critical to it all? Will you outline the implications of schools not being included on the list? Would they therefore not be required to provide interpreters and other support for deaf children?

Mr Greenway: I will bring Gerard in in a moment because out of the corner of my eye I can see him sitting forward expectantly. All Northern Ireland Departments will be prescribed. That is in the Bill, so that will occur. I cannot speak for the Education Authority. There is a process of negative resolution, but the Education Authority is a significant public body that is delivering public services, and I would be amazed if it were not prescribed.

Gerard will outline how we will reach out further than that.

Mr Gerard Flynn (Department for Communities): All Departments will be prescribed. We are also looking to prescribe the Education Authority and the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (CCMS).

It is difficult when we speak about education. I will frame it more from a DFC perspective and use Libraries NI as an example. Through the guidance, Libraries NI will have to produce a SLAP, which will then be applicable in every library in Northern Ireland. The analogy is the same for other government bodies. That is where we are coming from. From our perspective, every library in Northern Ireland will be caught because Libaries NI will be caught. Therefore, the responsibilities of the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools and the Education Authority will be the same for the schools that fall under their remit.

I cannot specifically speak for Education, but the intention is to list all public bodies, including all arm's-length bodies (ALBs) and local councils. We need to capture all of the public bodies that offer services to the deaf community. That is the intention of the clause.

Ms Mulholland: Thank you very much, gentlemen, for coming in today. Clause 3(2)(b) states:

As I read it, that puts affordability above inclusivity. Did the Department have parameters in mind when that was included in the Bill?

Mr Greenway: Yes, you are right, Sian. Clause 3(2) has an element of "on the one hand" and "on the other hand" to it. There is a commitment that access will be at no extra cost. That is stated hard and fast at the end of clause 3(2)(a), which is really important. If there is a cost to it, that will be covered by the public purse, however the mechanics of that work.

We have to recognise that money is tight. You hear that every week from officials, and you hear it every week in the Chamber. When we set down, "This has to be done" and, "That has to be done", in practical terms, that simply means that something else in the Department will not be done because money will only go so far. Therefore, the more things that we cover hard and fast in legislation without caveats, the less money there will be for other things that do not have a statutory duty for their provision.

What we are trying to do in the Bill is recognise that there will be tension. Let us be honest about it: some requests for access will be more expensive and more complex than others. We are trying to work through that. The best practice guidance underneath that will help public bodies to act in a coherent and consistent way that is aligned with the intent of the legislation.

Is there anything that you want to add to that, Tommy?

Mr McAuley: The headline part of clause 3 is that information and services must be available to BSL and ISL users without any additional cost. Clause 3(2)(b) is a matter of balance. When bodies are determining the bounds of reasonable steps, matters of affordability and practicability cannot be "never" issues.

We have an issue with the capacity of interpreters, which, as Iain outlined in his opening remarks, we are trying to address and build on. For practical reasons, someone could request an interpreter, but there may not enough to have one. At the moment, there is generally a lead-in time of two to three weeks for us to book an interpreter. That is an example of a practical issue.

The affordability issue can be very niche. We will provide statutory guidance, but, if someone wants something that is deemed to be unreasonable or, for example, goes back too far for to be translated, the affordability should be considered. Priority has to be given to immediate interpretation.

Ms Mulholland: Do you understand why some people in the community would read the clause in that way? In every consultation that I heard about, that was the interpretation of the people who attended. There is and will be a friction in that you can underwrite everything by saying, "The affordability deems it to be inapplicable".

Mr McAuley: All public bodies must be reasonable at all times. In this case, the test of reasonableness will be whether they are already meeting their obligations under the legislation and complying with the statutory guidance. Most likely, we will say that, in 2025, you must provide an interpreter for key appointments. The feedback that we have been getting is that there is an understanding that things will not change overnight. There will be that issue of supply and demand with interpreters for appointments, meetings and, in particular, the provision of translation. Translation provision will be more costly than interpreters, and public bodies have to have some sort of recourse to assess whether, on balance, a request is reasonable.

In the legislation, under the definition of "the deaf community", CODAs — the children of deaf adults — are included. They may have a good command of English, so is it reasonable and affordable to provide an interpreter for them on request? They may not be impacted, but I am trying to outline "What if?" scenarios, because we have to future-proof the legislation.

Ms Mulholland: Will there be criteria in that statutory guidance on what is deemed to be appropriate?

Mr Flynn: That is the point of this. Although the legislation mentions the term "affordable", the guidance will set out how you approach that. The guidance will not start with, "It is unaffordable; do not do it". The opposite will be the case: your last course of action will be to deem something unaffordable. Through the guidance, we are looking at getting access to services for the deaf community. That is the best way to achieve that access to services. Due to practical issues, availability of interpreters and other reasons, we may not always be able to achieve those ends, but the guidance starts from the premise that we are looking to get access to services for the deaf community rather than looking for reasons to prevent it.

Mr Greenway: That guidance is being developed and co-designed, and the pen is currently held by the British Deaf Association (BDA) rather than the Department. That is very much about trying to work through the issues that can be foreseen arising in daily life for a health trust, GP, school or whatever the prescribed organisations may be and the person in the deaf community. The more that we can foresee and embed in that guidance, the better, and the co-design process is proving to be a rich seam from which to mine.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Before you ask your next question, Sian, I have a wee follow-up to that. When will we see the guidance? Will it be before we conclude our considerations? I ask that because we do not want to buy a pig in a poke when it comes to the guidance. You are providing some reassurance, but we would like to see that guidance. When will we have sight of it?

Mr Greenway: Yes. The written briefing talks about that happening four to six weeks from today, which will be the end of November. It is under the heading "Best practice and guidance" in paragraph 10 of the written briefing:

Mr McAuley: The best practice is being circulated around the members of the sign language partnership group for them to consider or revise or add to it. Considering that group's membership comprises Departments and representatives of the deaf community, we expect it to be robust.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): OK.

Sorry, Sian. I interrupted you.

Ms Mulholland: You're OK. What does the term "public character" in clause 4(4) mean?

Mr Flynn: I notice that that has caused some concern. The purpose of clause 4(4) is to capture the public bodies that are not captured under clause 4(1), carry out some functions and are not set up as an arm's-length body or otherwise. There are no obvious ones and we are still looking, but they are not the priority.

Basically, that is to catch something that is serving as a public body that we have missed, rather than throwing a net out to catch everybody. It is saying, "Here's an area that we've missed. It's providing a public service and carrying out its functions." In those situations, we go on to list those bodies. We have not identified any at the minute, but it is there to future-proof and bring in any areas that have been missed in relation to services to the deaf community.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): One that has been identified in evidence to the Committee is care homes. That is a classic case in point.

Mr Flynn: That is something that we would have to take on board.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): That is a very public service.

Mr Flynn: We would have to take legal advice on where they sit in the functions of providing a public service, but it is certainly something that we can consider. It depends which Department care homes fall under as well and on how they fall into their slot in that process. Who is responsible for care homes? I do not know off the top of my head. Going back to the example of the libraries, Libraries NI is responsible for each library, and from there it would bring its sign language plans straight into the street level in the libraries.

Mr Greenway: Tommy and Gerard were with the First Legislative Counsel yesterday, and that was one of the things that they talked about.

Mr McAuley: For the purposes of this legislation, an organisation has to be wholly in. We cannot list part of an organisation that has a public function. We had questions previously from the Committee about, for example, healthcare provisions and elective surgery in private institutions such as Kingsbridge or Bupa. Clearly, they are not providing a public function in 100% of what they do. If a nursing home is solely publicly funded, that is an area that we will have to consider. If it is a blend, you are putting a regulatory impact on a private institution, which is not the intent of the legislation.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): They are private institutions operating in a statutory requirement service in delivering that care. You can see how such communication issues would be important, so that is where we need to ensure that that feeds through.

Mr Greenway: That is a really helpful example because some of that care is funded publicly and some privately, and it is self-evident that there will be more than the average number of people who will need help with signing and so on. We will absolutely take that away.

One example that was mentioned in earlier discussions is a prison in Scotland that is run by a private company, and that activity is of a public character. I am not saying that we will have — Pam is looking worriedly at me — a private prison here tomorrow, but that is an example of something that would drive straight in there.

With care homes you have raised a complex area. We will take that away and be ready by the time you come to the line-by-line scrutiny.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): For me, all those services mentioned should be provided by the state, to be honest about it. Such is their importance that there should not be a technical way or a technicality for them if they are operating in that privileged area delivering those services. OK, they are profiting from them, and that is one matter. There is a key requirement for us to ensure that people get the services in those key areas. Those are not services that people can do without or choose.

Mr Greenway: We will take that point away and be ready for the line-by-line scrutiny to allow the Committee to cover everything that it wishes this morning. If the Committee thinks of any other examples, please share them with us.

Mr Bradley: It is not really a question; it is some matters of clarification around the lack of cost analysis and a funding plan. Can the Department provide some sort of interim data or preliminary estimates? I am also unclear about the list of public bodies. Can the Department give us a draft list to review? The absence of teacher accreditation is a worry. Is there a clear timeline and options that can be provided to the Committee to discuss? Finally, with regard to co-design, there are potential gaps in representation. Can the Department provide detail about membership of the sign language group? Who was consulted? That is just a list of stuff that we need to know before we can make an informed decision.

Mr Greenway: The line is not brilliant, Maurice, but I am sure that the Clerk will write down those specific questions.

We previously provided the membership of the sign language partnership group. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the co-design is being evolved. There are public engagement forums as well; it is not simply a closed room with the group or the committee. The team who are here, like the British Deaf Association and others, have extremely good reach out into the sector and are doing all that they can to use that reach. It is not in our interests, as a Department, not to get this right — or as right as we can, accepting that we are all human.

I will go back to the start of Maurice's list. Please keep me right, Maurice. I think that the first question was about the cost of the signing translation services: is that correct?

Mr Bradley: Yes, it was about getting some guidelines as to what this will cost down the line. There is no initial cost, but, down the line, there will be a cost for a plethora of stuff.

Mr Greenway: I preface this by saying, as I said to Sian, that, under clause 3(2)(a), the cost will be borne by the public purse. Of course, the public purse is not bottomless, so this will have to fight its corner with everything else that is in the process. At the moment, we know that the costs of the services that the health system — it is now within the Department of Health; it has been within the Regional Health and Social Board, which has now been brought back within the Department of Health — provides is of the order of £1 million a year.

Mr McAuley: It is in excess of £1 million per year. That is for online support, face-to-face support, note taking and lip speaking.

Mr Greenway: We know that the central government service, which was procured through Construction and Procurement Delivery as a lot within the overall interpreting services, cost around about £0·5 million in the past 12 months. As a starting point, therefore, we know that it will be around £1·5 million to £2 million. We also know that not all needs are being brought up. The Bill will identify additional needs, because it is about recognising the existing shortcomings in the system.

I apologise that we are not able to be more scientific, Maurice, but, as a rule of thumb, we have doubled the number. That is a sense of the scale of what we might be working with. To achieve that, we need public funding to fund the contracts that will need to be in place to do it. We also need interpreters, because it is no good having contracts if there are not enough interpreters to go round, hence the number of students going through Queen's, the Foyle Deaf Association etc. Those people cannot be magicked up; it takes time for them to come up to standard and be available.

We have been working strongly on the capacity. As I said, as a rule of thumb, we are looking at roughly doubling it. We cannot guarantee that, and I defy anybody to say what this number will look like with any certainty. We know that there are certain things that will be needed almost in real time, in A&E departments or wherever it may be. There are other things where we may not need to be in the moment and it may be possible to be a bit flexible with time. We will have to work with those things, as will our contractors and signers. Let us be honest: sometimes, if there is an urgent need in A&E, a signer may have to go there rather than dealing with something that is not so in the minute. That is life for the deaf and the non-deaf.

Hopefully that gives you some reassurance, Maurice, that (a) we have been thinking about the numbers and (b) we are thinking about how the pipes are constructed. We are thinking about whether the health system contract will expand to cover all prescribed bodies, whether we should continue to have both the central government and the health contract and how to get best practice moving between them. They will all draw on the same pool of interpreters, so my instinct is that we should have a single contract, because that would help to balance where the power sits in the system, but we need to look at what is most practical.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Thank you. I wanted to pick up on a point that you mentioned —. [Inaudible.]

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Sorry, Maurice. Go ahead.

Mr Bradley: It is important, because, as a scrutiny Committee, we need to have all the information before we can go forward, and it is vital that we get it right. That is vital.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Thank you, Maurice. I fully agree. There may be questions, including Maurice's and a few that we do not get to today, that we will put in to you.

Mr Greenway: I should say that this is primary legislation and, as with all primary legislation, it is enabling. There will be much scrutiny of statutory regulations and statutory guidance that come in underneath this and of what the costs will be, as budget scrutiny goes on. To think that everything will be dealt with in detail in a spreadsheet at the stage of primary legislation is not how the structure of the two-tier legislation —.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): We all know how the structure works, Iain. We are all aware of that. Our duty is to make the legislation as good as we can at this stage. That is our duty as a Committee, and that is what we are trying to do.

Mr Greenway: Maurice had some other main strands. I do not know —.

Mr McAuley: Maurice asked about the timeline for accreditation under clause 10. I will pick up on that. There are two parts to that: the accreditation of teachers — for clarity, that is teachers of British Sign Language and Irish Sign Language, not teachers in mainstream education — and the accreditation of interpreters.

The accreditation of interpreters will be pretty straightforward. We are not seeking to collect fees to set up a new body. In all probability, the regulations will say that you must be a member of a registration body such as the National Register of Communication Professionals working with Deaf and Deafblind People (NRCPD), the Scottish listing or the Irish sign language service to work in a public forum. That is to safeguard the quality of interpreters and ensure continuous professional development etc.

The teachers/tutors is a more complicated issue. There is currently no equivalent body for teachers. We have provided a grant for local tutors to set up their own charity, with a view to considering whether they could deliver something similar to the NRCPD. Accreditation for interpreters should be turned around pretty quickly, but we cannot say what it will be for teachers until there is an equivalent body. There is no intent in the Department to collect fees. However, it is in the primary legislation to future-proof in case something cannot be done with the teaching body.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Thank you for that; it addresses what was going to be another question of mine. Are you content that those bodies will cover any potential dialect issues? That has been raised with us.

Mr McAuley: There is a Health and Social Care (HSC) contract. I will take it back to COVID. The deaf community launched a campaign; it wanted local interpreters. We worked with the health boards and set up the first contract. It was not well received by interpreters, so we moved to another provider. It set up a hunt group, if I can call it that, of Northern Ireland BSL and ISL interpreters to meet the need. The cohort of interpreters currently working in Northern Ireland on face-to-face interpretation etc — the likes of Kristina and Amanda — are either based in Northern Ireland or — generally speaking, for ISL, up until now we have relied on interpreters coming up from the South. That is why we have invested in capacity building. It means that, for the first time, we have probably the biggest cohort of Northern Ireland-based ISL interpreters. All of those interpreters will have been taught within the Northern Ireland framework, and therefore Northern Ireland dialects will have been embedded in what they were taught. Their language models, as part of their training programme, will have been the Northern Ireland deaf community. Most of our interpreters will have had to travel to GB or to the South for ISL. There is a built-in tolerance threshold for influence from dialects. The only occasions for which we get BSL interpreters coming to Northern Ireland is for conferences, where capacity is an issue, or international conferences.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Before I go to Pam, I will pick up on one wee issue that was mentioned around people who have reasonably good English. I know that we will not get to a perfect situation immediately, but the point has been made strongly in Committee that, often, English is a second language. Irrespective of how good it might be, it is a second language, and people want to communicate in their first language, as all of us do.

Mr McAuley: That is why clause 2 contains the word "convenient". You will be aware of Ellie-May O'Connell. She is very articulate and has vocalised her issues. She has a cochlear implant, but, after a while, she is more comfortable signing. We have many deaf people in Northern Ireland who are like that. Without an interpreter, they can communicate with us orally, but they prefer to sign.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): It is important that we get to that stage.

Mrs Cameron: Thank you very much for your attendance. It is a fascinating topic. I am glad to see the work being done, because it is long overdue and greatly needed.

This is not a specific question to the Bill — or it may be; I am not fully over the detail yet or completely up to speed. What attention has been given to geographical areas with a higher concentration of the deaf community? How has that impacted on the drafting of the Bill, or has it? Clearly, we want the best legislation we can have, and we want provision to be as wide-reaching as is physically possible. Clearly, there are areas that may well have a higher concentration of the deaf community. Has that come into play at all in the drafting?

Mr Greenway: Certainly, we are anxious to make sure that deaf people, wherever they are, get the service they need, subject to all of the pieces in the Bill and everything else. The rural-proofing and equality impact assessment (EQIA) and all of that will have fed into those processes where the interpreters live etc. There will be practical points. More and more, much of it can and is being done online with a pop-up on the screen, so geography becomes a little less intensive, but there will certainly be occasions when you need all to be in the same physical space to get it absolutely right.

Do you have anything in particular around geography, Tommy?

Mr McAuley: Yes. With the best will in the world, we can invest in building the capacity of the interpreters, but we cannot necessarily direct where they will live or work, because they are largely freelance. If they are under contract, for example, with Health and Social Care, maybe more direction can happen there. Look back at the Scottish legislation: they had a similar issue with the islands. One of its landscape reviews, carried out by Edinburgh University, looked at incentivising interpreters to travel to the islands, because they were aware of a gap. From working with the Foyle Deaf Association and Hands That Talk in the north-west, we know that they cover a large area that expands into the south-west — Fermanagh and parts of Tyrone — because of gaps there. It is something that we will have to look at. We have been considering what we can do, but the issue is that we are working with a freelance cohort, and we cannot direct them to travel.

Mrs Cameron: I suspect the solution is just to get as many interpreters as possible out of the process because, clearly, there is huge burnout. It is very labour-intensive.

Mr McAuley: Absolutely. We have nine on tap, which Iain referred to, from the Foyle Deaf Association. There are 12 or 13 unregistered students — deaf/hearing, BSL/ISL — going through the MA at Queens who, hopefully, if things go well with their studies, will be registered at the end of that, and then we will go again. Even though it is a cross-cutting issue, the Department is taking the lead in developing our capacity of interpreters.

Mrs Cameron: With regard to accreditation, I know that anecdotally there have been issues where people have done courses, moved through the ranks and progressed, but there has been an issue around having somebody qualified to give them that accreditation. There has been a lack of accreditors to give them the qualification which they have already earned. I think there was an issue where they had to come from England or somewhere.

Mr McAuley: Currently, there is one accrediting body, Signature. There was a deaf body called the Institute of British Sign Language (iBSL), which is maybe what you are referring to. It got into financial difficulties and folded. The students who had gone through iBSL did not get their certificates, so that might be what you are referring to. They had to re-engage with Signature. There was also an issue for our ISL students at the Foyle Deaf Association in that the NRCPD, which is a UK registration body, did not register ISL interpreters. It made the point, which was a fair point, that it is a subscription-based body and could not justify to interpreters in Durham, Surrey, Kent or wherever the additional cost for a handful of ISL interpreters. The Department stepped in and funded the translation of its portal, and now it registers ISL interpreters. Likewise, we were waiting for the mapping environment to be settled with Queen's and NRCPD. We received confirmation this week that it has been settled, so the students going through Queen's will be able to register with NRCPD. The Foyle Deaf Association and any other ISL interpreters will be able to register with NRCPD. The students who went through iBSL are registering through Signature — if they pass their tests, of course. I hope that that answers your question.

Mrs Cameron: Yes, I think so. Thank you for all the good work that is going on.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): Just to confirm, Tommy, you are using the register of Irish Sign Language interpreters for ISL: is that right?

Mr McAuley: That is our intention. Also, it means that ISL students who qualify will be able to register in the South and with NRCPD.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): In relation to clause 4, can you explain why it is important that some of them are done by affirmative resolution — public functions — while public bodies will be by negative resolution? Why is there a difference?

Mr Greenway: I will preface my comments by saying that we are looking at affirmative and negative resolution throughout the Bill with the First Legislative Counsel, making sure that it is consistent with itself and with approaches in other legislation. As we have discussed, we feel that the list of public bodies, as we have discussed, with the exception of the question mark over the schools piece, will be a pretty standard list of public bodies, comprising Departments and their arm's-length bodies. Having to come to affirmative resolution for that list every time a new body is created or a body changes its name or a body is merged appears, to us, disproportionate.

On the issue of bodies of a public character, which we have agreed to take away further, we can see where it is not as clear-cut. Whether that takes us towards affirmative rather than negative resolution, therefore splitting out those two things, is something that we are open to debate on, but, as you heard in your previous discussion, Chair, we need to look at that a little more around care homes and some other examples.

If I can go off-piste for a moment, I think that, somewhere in the legislative catalogue, there should be a list of all public bodies that is maintained somehow centrally that everything else refers to so that, every time a new commissioner is appointed, a body is created or something changes its name, everybody is not scrabbling around via negative resolution to change their lists of prescribed bodies. We had, in an early draft of this, the Public Services Ombudsman Act (Northern Ireland) 2016, which lists a lot of public bodies. That has been used by other legislation, but, for reasons to do with the complaints process, it does not include Translink or NI Water, which have other mechanisms for complaints. We lost organisations out of that, and we are having to start from scratch, which does not seem a particularly efficient way of doing this when we are going to list the Education Authority, Libraries NI, National Museums — we could all write the list. That is a little off-piste, but I make that point generally.

Mr McAuley: The list is essentially about providing access to public services and the same public bodies that we as hearing people access, so it is not contentious, in our view. There will be nothing underhand. It will just be deaf people accessing those public services, as referenced in clause 3, without cost or inconvenience.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): I get that in principle, but I am still not clear why some of them are deemed to be better affirmative and some negative.

Mr Flynn: We could have just put in the primary legislation that we capture all public bodies under section 1(f) of the Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954. We put in the requirement for negative resolution around public bodies to give the Committee the opportunity for scrutiny. I know that it is a negative process, but it is still scrutiny. That is why we are listing them, basically: it is so that the Committee can scrutinise them, rather than our putting them directly into the legislation. So there is that scrutiny. It is negative particularly on this one because public bodies are what they are; they are public bodies. They are non-controversial. We can all list them, and we can all name them. The only objection to going on that list would be for a public body to say that it is not a public body. None of the names that we have mentioned would not describe themselves as public bodies, so they will be on the list.

The other reason for negative resolution is that we can make the regulations really quickly, and we need to consult all of the prescribed organisations before we publish the guidance. If we do it through negative resolution, we can have the regulations made a couple of days after Royal Assent through the negative procedure and then go out and directly consult the public bodies that have been listed as prescribed organisations. That gives us the ability to kick straight in. If we were to put it through the affirmative process, we would have to come through the Committee and the SL1 process and then make the regulations. It might be two or three months down the line before we could consult. We cannot consult until we list the public bodies as prescribed organisations. We cannot consult on the guidance, and the guidance is the main factor of the Bill. The guidance will make the Bill work. That is the rationale for going for the negative procedure: it is non-controversial, we can do it quickly and we can therefore act quickly to get the consultation out to all the prescribed bodies.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): I get what you say about flexibility and speed. Counter to that, however, is the fact that the Committee is interested in all scrutiny. We will think about that. You have set out the reasons, and we will give it some thought.

Mr Greenway: I will add that, in clause 10 on accreditation, negative resolution is listed. There is the potential for fees, but that is not to say that there will be fees. Advice from legislative counsel, however, is that affirmative procedure is the norm for anything that could have fees attached. We are going back through all the negatives and affirmatives with a fine-tooth comb to check that they sit with precedent and protocol.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): I thought that we had dealt fairly comprehensively with education at the start, but you mentioned:

I hope that letting the Department of Education off the hook will not be countenanced just because it is considering whether it should be included. Would your Department consider allowing it off the hook in any sense?

Mr Greenway: Sorry. I was saying that everything is straightforward, except that we are still discussing schools; I was not saying that they are out.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): But are you discussing whether they are in or out as prescribed organisations?

Mr Greenway: For some schools that are not run directly through the Education Authority, there are genuine questions on which we need to take into account the views of the Department of Education. Just as the Department for Communities would look askance at the Department of Education if it went off and regulated something in the housing space, we need to give the Department of Education its place in this. However, we know that we need to bring it to a conclusion sooner rather than later, and we have heard loud and clear the views of the Committee and, indeed, your witnesses about the particular challenges in the school setting.

The Chairperson (Mr Gildernew): OK. Are there any other questions, members?

Clearly, we will meet again as we work our way through the process. I appreciate the briefing that you have sent us, your attendance today and your addressing questions from members. We will all take that away and consider whether there are further questions or issues that we want to raise with you. Thank you for that, Iain, Tommy and Gerard.

Mr Greenway: Thank you very much, Committee.