Thank you, Llywydd, I’d like to welcome the publication of the OLS annual report for 2017-18. Evidently, it’s very helpful that the report is being published as early as possible. I’d like to congratulate the Commission and the staff of the Assembly for achieving the commitment to publish the report by July following the financial year to which it relates.

Although we do welcome that, it does cause some difficulties for us as a committee. The first chance the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee had to consider the report was at our meeting this morning. This was too late for us to be able to have considered advice about its content and has not allowed time for us to consider whether we wanted to scrutinise the Commission on its content, let alone actually conduct any additional scrutiny. Ideally, the committee would wish to have seen the report in good time to consider its content, and conduct scrutiny if it thought that was necessary, and then feed the outcome of that scrutiny through to this debate today.

I have spoken to Adam Price and I do understand that there are some practical issues with publishing the report much earlier in the year. We certainly wouldn’t want to hold up the publication in future. Nevertheless, I would ask that the Commission makes every effort in future years to publish the report early enough to allow the committee to properly consider it, and, if necessary, to conduct scrutiny before the Plenary debate. If that means that the Plenary debate needs to be held in the early autumn rather than on the last day of the summer term, then I think that’s a price worth paying for effective scrutiny.

Turning to the content of the report itself, I do have a number of points to make and questions for the Commissioner. Firstly, when the current scheme was drawn up, an equality impact assessment was prepared. I note that the working group established to work on theme 1, namely recruitment, checks regularly that the tasks arising from the EIA are in fact being carried out. However, could the Commissioner ensure that a revised EIA, which shows clearly the progress made on these tasks is now published?

There is not a great deal of information in the report on the new recruitment process and the language skills level information collected. Perhaps the Commissioner could expand on that. For instance, the new courtesy level certificate that will be given to everyone assessed at this level will only last for two years. Why two years? An explanation of the thinking behind this would be helpful for us as a committee. More generally, more information in this area and, in future years, more data—more data again, sorry—on the numbers recruited at each level would be very useful for us.

The report says that the Assembly Commission expects those organisations and bodies that are subject to language standards or schemes to comply with their own schemes in submitting information to the Assembly. However, the report refers to subordinate legislation, which is often presented in English only. I wonder if the Commissioner could comment further on that and what steps are being taken to ensure that the Welsh Government, I assume, complies with its responsibilities in this area.

On a similar point, I note that 23 per cent of papers submitted by the Welsh Government to Assembly committees are in English only. What steps is the Commission taking to raise this issue with the Welsh Government? Also, on the Welsh Government’s compliance, there is currently no information on the extent to which Assembly Members receive replies in Welsh to written Assembly questions. In fairness, that’s an issue for the Assembly to address in the first instance, but is there any evidence of the Government replying in English to questions in Welsh?

Twenty per cent of contributions in Plenary debates by Members are made in Welsh. However, just 8 per cent of contributions in committee are made in Welsh. Can the Commissioner offer any explanation for that disparity and whether any work is being done to encourage greater use of Welsh in committees? In my personal opinion, one of the main problems is, sometimes, we ask questions in Welsh and people take off their headsets and then expect, sometimes, that the supplementary questions are going to be asked in English, and that interrupts the flow of those asking the questions. So, maybe more information for those giving evidence before committees that there is an expectation—or perhaps they can keep the headsets on during the committee meetings.

Finally, I note that there are examples of complaints that have arisen about non-compliance with the scheme, and you’ve already referred to this, Adam. However, there are no data to give us a sense of the scale of the complaints. It would be helpful if, in future, data are included on the number of complaints received so that comparisons can be made from year to year. This would also allow any increase or decrease, as well as any trends about the type of complaints, to be monitored more effectively.

I’d like to finish by thanking all the staff of the Assembly who help us to work in a genuinely bilingual environment, whether that be the translators translating my remarks today or those who help us with written translation services. But I’d also like to thank those staff, Welsh and non-Welsh speakers alike, who recognise the importance of this place being seen as an exemplar of a bilingual institution and who, through their work, allow us to work in our language of choice and who ensure that services are provided to allow the public to interact with us in their language of choice.