Grumpy Old Deafies

Recently there was a parliamentary question on the proportion of translation services contracted out to commercial providers:

Roger Gale (North Thanet, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what proportion of his Department's translation and interpreting work is outsourced through framework agreements with commercial providers; and if he will make a statement.

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Work and Pensions)

Under the Race Relations Amendment Act (2000) and the Disability Discrimination Act (1995), the Department has a responsibility to make appropriate provision to communicate with customers who do not speak English or Welsh, or who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, or who provide the Department, at our request, legal or official documents written in a foreign language.

The Department for Work and Pensions provides a national range of translation and interpreting services across all of its agencies that include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Use of multi-lingual staff, who are willing and able to interpret or to undertake an interview in a foreign language

• Face-to-face individual interpreters and signers for local office customers

• English to Welsh translation for documentation which is partly done by the small in-house Welsh Language Unit and the remainder by external providers

• Ethnic Translation Services of a large number of written documents in a wide range of languages

• Written English and Welsh to Braille translation and Braille to English and Welsh translation

• Formatting of printed documents into easy-read format

• Telephone interpreting service (multi-lingual)

In order to deliver these services on a national basis the Department for Work and Pensions has established a number of framework agreements via full open tender processes with a number of external providers.

All of the above services are outsourced except for a small number of multi-lingual staff who offer their services on an as required basis within their local office.

One has to ask two questions, how much is demand outstripping supply here and are translation services value for money? Is the government able to look at the bigger picture, and readdress an economics equilibrium?

As a general observation, shame the government can't heed its own legal advice and translated information into BSL or consulted directly on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Sometimes a lot of this policy is just talk, and no action!

Sources:
They Work For You
Hansard

Posted by alison at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The 2008 New Year's Honours List has been published.

The relevant Orders of the British Empire in relation to Services with Deaf People are:

Order of the British Empire
Members of the Order of the British Empire

Mrs Dorothy Ann Rebecca HEGARTY
For services to Deaf People in Northern Ireland.
(Dungiven, Londonderry)
[Hands That Talk]

Thomas Joseph KEOGAN
Consultant for Deaf Services, Darlington Borough Council.
For services to Deaf People.
(Coatham Mundeville, Durham)

Ms Rose-Ann O'MALLEY
Founder, Talking Hands Organisation.
For services to Deaf People.
(Northampton, Northamptonshire)

Mrs Elizabeth WARD
For services to Deaf and Hard of Hearing People in Northern Ireland.
(Altnagelvin, Londonderry)
[Hearing Therapist at Altnagavin Hospital, Londonderry, Hearing Dogs article, Hearing Concern snippet - page 2]

Additionally, for Services to Disabled People, there was one noticable honour:

Order of the British Empire
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire

Rachel Mary Rosalind, Mrs HURST, OBE
Director, Disability Awareness in Action.
For services to Disabled People.
(Hullavington, Wiltshire)

See also:
[2007] New Years Honours List

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Slashdot is carrying a post about Lip-Reading Surveillance Cameras

Now the British government is considering taking it literally by adding lip reading technology to some of the four million or so surveillance cameras in order identify terrorists and criminals by watching what everyone says.

Infowars expands on this:

Computer-based lip-reading technology would help video surveillance systems spot people planning a crime or terror attack by literally watching suspects’ lips for clues. Once it finds someone speaking certain key words or sentences, the system would automatically send an alert message to a central console, mobile phone, or other communications device. Police or security agents could then be dispatched to the scene to question the individual.

Lipreading is difficult enough for humans, thus how does the government expect a computer to do it? A case of artificial intelligence overtaking human intelligence? Has anyone bothered to figure how you lipread the difference between PAPER and BABY for example? Since criminal trials expect a standard beyond all reasonable doubt, how is this going to be admissible in court?

I've got a better idea. If this ever pulls off, how about trying this out on the next generation of speech to text captioning? Perhaps we could expand our access when it comes to accessing some of those spoken language vlogs we are currently unable to?

Posted by alison at 8:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Going to test how blogging about a parliamentary round up might work, perhaps on a regular basis depending if people find this useful or not?

Will take this information from theyworkforyou.com, I encourage you to interact over there. I've subscribed via RSS to appearances made my my local MP for a couple of years, however, as far as I am able to tell you can't get a RSS feed for keywords. Only way of getting keyword updates is via e mail alerts. So old school. Does anyone know if a keyword RSS is possible, and if so how to do it? Whatever, theyworkforyou.com should address this as a matter of urgency (either by enabling RSS, or making it easier to find).

Deaf people and parliament in 2007, to date:

Waiting Lists for audiology: in the south east

Pathways to Work: How many deaf people are registered, and for a statement.

Sign Language Support: sign language support in education, touches on interpreters

Access to Fair Access to Care for deafblind people: if a specific assessment of access has been done in relation to deafblind? Answer: no.

Numbers of compensation for people in the armed forces, who've been made deaf: numbers not available.

Number of deaf people unemployed: numbers unavailable, as not collected by the Labour Force Survey.

Information for deaf people on Disability Equality Duty: says can access information by BSL. (Can we? I've not seen any BSL publications on this, especially during the crucial consultation period). Also states there's an Accessible Written Information Standard. (The fact that its called written, excludes BSL since sign languages cannot be written).

Numbers of defence personnel who have been made deaf in Iraq and Afghanistan: don't know numbers.

Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill: family with a deaf child referred to magistrates by a local authority. Local authority did not state all the facts, and state the child was deaf.

DLA Higher Mobility: available to those who are deafblind.

Special Educational Needs: restriction of speech and language therapists.

Welfare Reform Bill: attitudes from employers re deaf people and employment.

Concessionary Bus Pass Travel: to include deaf people.

Digital Switchover: access to digital television.

Deaf people: interpreters: interpreters in the criminal justice system.

Sign Language Courses: funding for BSL classes has not been withdrawn, and no statistics held re: number of courses.

Children's Rights Survey: includes NDCS being involved. Was this survey available in BSL?

Access to Work Scheme: what is the criteria to assess communication support? Answer: look at cases individually, take into account cost effectiveness. Advisers use standard questions to determine number of interpreters and what qualifications they should have. Government really doesn't get it.

Parliamentary Questions: RSD Cheadle: recognition of work carried out at this school.

Interpreters for job interviews: someone refused interpreters for work focused interviews. Minister will look into.

Audiology services in Northern Ireland: waiting times.

Posted by alison at 8:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm told its silly season out there re picking up on the 2011 census, and who gets credit. My take: who bloody cares. Its done, just everyone else pull their finger out and campaign for something. Reminds me of other campaigns that take place, and just watching everyone jump on a bandwagon as time moves forward.

The need for accurate figures has been around for years, and something I got into back in 2000 through writing the BSL recognition policy document for FDP. Sat in some pub Islington with Doug (Alker), and we discussed figures and the census. How the census could be a by product of recognition (as many other things), and how there was a need for some decent figures. In the following year, someone works at the National Statistics Office, had warned me about how early questions gets decided thus 2001 was definitely out. I then made a conscious decision to watch this one. Within the Deaf community, people moaned but little action taken.

Away from this, I had been involved with family history research, and naturally taken a keen interest in census returns. Over the last year I have transcribed census returns from 1841 to 1901, in a parish spanning 8 miles by 3 miles, for a one parish study I'm co-ordinating. That's 566 documents of data, and RSI and very sore eyes at the end of it. Through my own family history research, where I've discovered half my family was "Deaf and Dumb", via census returns, something previously unknown to me. (This was a standard question from 1851 to 1901). Too many questions came out of this discovery, re how my ancestors communicated, and who to. In all this, my appreciation and importance of national records grew, and the deep desire to make it applicable to modern times. No such clues were visible via census returns now, and became increasingly frustrated over this.

It was via family history I got the wind of the practicalities of consultation time frame for the 2011 census, and via family history received notification of last year's consultation (even though the need for BSL to be included in census returns had been recommended prior to this). I subsequently posted this on Deaf UK, some 20 months ago. Had I not been involved with family history, and being able to overlap two areas, it would have been a bit more difficult.

Interests can influence each other. This doesn't only have benefits for those who use BSL, but for future family historians. They will get to learn about how their ancestors spent their time, and what language was used.

There's people out there with many interests, and with these interests they can bring skills that can be utilised in other circles, and of mutual benefit. I wish more time was spent merging and transferring these skills, with a vision to do so, instead of doing a lot of banging on a drum and generally complaining.

Posted by alison at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A test census has been released in preparation for the 2011 census.

For the first time, this includes a question about British Sign Language (Page 6), which asks in relation to language usage:

- No ability
- Understand sign
- Sign

This is a major step forward, and acknowledges that BSL is a language in its own right, it might put to bed conflicting statistics once and for all (only a small number of people use), something that can only be encouraged.

However, here we have a question IN ENGLISH, asking about other minority languages. If the government acknowledges other languages are used in the UK, then it needs to start producing the census in these languages, as it is required to do by law with Welsh.

Where's the BSL version of the census? This could be put online, with a householder code, as an option to respond in BSL. There's obvious questions how to record BSL here.

Whilst other languages have the box to write, it is taking a rather narrow definition of write here. As in pen and paper. Recording (or writing in a broader sense) of BSL has been done in previous decades by video letter, and the advent of the internet allows writing or recording of sign language via vlogs, signed attachments to e mails, and so forth. To exclude this, pushes the assumption that sign language is somewhat of a lesser language.

In addition to BSL, the census allows space for other sign languages, and leaves this field blank. What happens if you know more than one additional sign language, which I can can think a few people might do.

The above was something I pushed for last year at consultation stage, and this is what I posted on an e mail group:

Mon May 16, 2005 11:16 pm

2011 census consultation

An opportunity to push for BSL to be included on the census? I know the Welsh / English / both language question has traditionally been asked in Wales. What about other languages?

Alison

------

Date: May 16, 2005
CONSULTATION BEGINS ON THE TOPICS FOR THE 2011 CENSUS

A consultation programme to identify the topics for possible inclusion in the 2011 Census was launched today by the Office for National Statistics.

A document 'The 2011 Census: Initial view on content for England and Wales' has been published as a focus for the consultation and can be seen on the National Statistics website at:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/about/consultations/2011census.asp

This provides a first view of what the 2011 Census questionnaire might include for England and Wales. ONS is placing strong emphasis on maximising responses from households and individuals. This might include making the questionnaire less complex and limiting the number
of questions. This emphasis comes as a result of lessons learnt from the 2001 Census.

Reducing complexity could mean significant changes to some questions traditionally asked in censuses, such as people's work and working arrangements.

Some new topics are also being considered. Two key areas are:

* Collecting information on whether people have more than one address or home (a second address) and on visitors present at an address on Census Night. This will improve understanding of how people in the UK live, and, in particular, provide information on those who regularly
spend time at different addresses. This could include children whose parents have separated and people who live away from the family home at certain times for work reasons.

* Income. Information about income in broad bands would be used to identify areas of deprivation to help government when developing policies. A question on income has never before been included in a UK Census.

The consultation deals with potential census topics for England and Wales and similar exercises are being carried out in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

ONS officials will be meeting groups of the main census users during visits to the regions of England and Wales in early summer. Written responses from groups and individuals to the consultation should be submitted by Friday 5 August 2005. Details of how to respond are
provided in the document. The consultation has been designed to allow time for questions to be developed for public testing in 2007.

BACKGROUND NOTES

1. Link to the GROS consultation website:
http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/census/censushm2011/index.html

2. Link to the NISRA consultation website:
http://www.nisra.gov.uk/census/2011_census_consultation.html

http://www.statistics.gov.uk

The other question is on page 9, which asks if you have "deafness or severe hearing impairment". This is rather subjective, and how many old age pensioners who have been hearing all their life, will end up ticking this box, when they've just got some disposable hearing aid from Boots?

On a positive note, perhaps it will counteract some of the ridiculous statistics that keep flying around, such as the DRC says there's 10 million disabled people in the UK, with that corporate charity saying there's 8,945,000 deaf and hard of hearing.

If there's 8,945,000 deaf and hard of hearing, there can only be 1,055,000 other disabled
including: blind, partially sighted, mental health, wheel chair users, dyslexic, aspergers, autistic, diabetes, epilepsy etc. Right? Wrong?

Parliament debates what will actually be included in the census in 2009. We can only hope that BSL is still included, then roll on to 2011.

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