Thank you, Llywydd. It gives me great pleasure to present this annual report on the Assembly Commission’s official languages scheme for the fifth Assembly.

The Commission has set the aim of being an institution that’s known for providing excellent bilingual services that are innovative, and to be a body that’s an example for other bodies in Wales and beyond. It’s good, therefore, to present this report on progress on this ambition.

First, I will address the themes that have been set for the period of the scheme. We have set five themes to structure our work, with the aim of achieving our ambition of becoming a truly bilingual institution that looks for every opportunity to facilitate and promote the use of the Welsh language.

The first theme relates to recruitment, and, as we committed to achieving by this summer, we have adopted a new approach to recruitment. Now, the Commission will set specific Welsh language skills levels for every post that we will advertise. This will mean that a basic level of Welsh language skills will be part of the job description for any role that does not require a higher level of skills. For posts that require a higher level of Welsh language skills, we have introduced a matrix that defines those levels from one to five.

This is a clear statement, Llywydd, of our ambition to support the workforce of our national Parliament to take ownership of the Welsh language, without exception, to confirm its position and status as a language that belongs to all citizens of Wales, and to take practical steps to enable all of our staff to serve the people of Wales in both our languages.

The second theme is language skills, and, again, a series of targets have been set to be delivered by the summer of 2018. Over the past year, the language skills team has worked on developing a Welsh language skills training programme that is available to all, from new learners to fluent Welsh speakers. Over the summer, we will trial more intensive training, and staff and Members have had an opportunity to be part of the residential provision of the Cymraeg Gwaith project under the auspices of the National Centre for Learning Welsh.

In terms of language planning, which is the third theme, all services have been updating their language schemes with the support of the official languages ​​team. As well as ensuring that our workforce has the appropriate level of Welsh language skills, it is crucial too, of course, that we do plan in a meaningful way to provide opportunities for all our staff to use their Welsh language skills, at whatever level, in their day-to-day work. In reviewing our service language plans, we have seen language domains developing within the institution, with teams working internally through the medium of Welsh, but providing external services bilingually. These domains are something that we will be eager to develop further over the next year.

The fourth theme relates to Assembly proceedings. Work in this area has focused on supporting Members and facilitating bilingual working.

The fifth theme is the broadest in terms of the work done over the year. The targets here are relatively simple, generally speaking, but, together, they will make a major contribution to changing the image and ethos of our institution to reflect the bilingual nation that we serve. Badges and lanyards are now being used and distributed by default, and many Commission staff use the 'iaith gwaith' badge on their e-mails too. As you would expect, our work on language technology has continued, including some work that has led to a very exciting project for the Table Office and Record of Proceedings teams.

To move on to the service levels within the scheme, we have information on how we’ve maintained the standards that have been set. For the first time this year, the annual report includes statistics on many elements of the services that we provide. During the process of drafting the scheme, the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee told us that data of this kind would be useful in assisting Members to monitor our performance in certain areas. We have set this out in the annual report and I look forward to working further with the committee on this work in the near future. I have to turn around 180 degrees to see you. This data will form a baseline to measure our performance over coming years and to target training for staff. We will also do everything within our ability to ensure that more bilingual information, including evidence and legislation, is available to Assembly Members as they take part in proceedings and prepare for those proceedings.

Finally, I’ll move on to monitoring and compliance. In the report, we report on the complaints and the feedback that we’ve received and the steps that have been taken and any further steps that we will take to deal with any problems and to ensure that we are fully compliant, in the spirit of transparency and providing assurance to the people of Wales that this institution is one that takes linguistic equality seriously in word and deed. Once again, these details will assist you to hold the Assembly Commission to account for our activities in supporting you and the people of Wales to work and to engage with us as an institution in your official language of choice, and therefore improve our bilingual services further for the future. Thank you.