P-04-526 Please make Senedd TV accessible to deaf people – Correspondence between the Petitioner and the Clerk to the Committee, 28.04.17

My e-mail/computer was changed and ISP replaced etc. Yes please consider the petition as written, I still feel deaf people do not have access to the workings of the Senedd, whilst we are aware some has gone online, all party areas like the sensory and deaf ones now appear to have folded in 2014/15, so I feel even more so now, there is a need to make certain meetings like the health areas far more accessible via video means and of course subtitled or captioned. The consensus in the hearing loss area of Wales which is made up of 300,000+ needs to have this access.

errata: I also contacted, the Senedd website area regarding utter confusion as regards to having a valid 'search' option we can use to update ourselves on issues relevant to our sector via the Senedd website, where we found at least 11 differing descriptions of hearing loss and deafness in the health area alone, there seemed no attempt to define which sector they were talking about. They were all listed as 'Deaf' which is allied to a cultural area, a minority of those with hearing loss in Wales. We pointed out this was at odds with the Senedd;'s own equality area as well, and by default had set up some 'hierarchy' by decibel loss or background. We also read the all-party committee on deaf issues attended by various charities in Wales, had to provide own support to follow, and, that grass roots people were not invioted to attend.

Thank you for contacting me.

Petitioner

M E James

----------------------------------------------------------------------Dear Mr James

Thank you for getting back to me. I am glad that we have been able to make contact with you regarding your petition.

I will happily put your comments below to the Committee at their next meeting on 9 May. However, it would help us if we could clarify a couple of points so that I can ensure that the Committee Members fully understand the issues you are raising.

In relation to your first paragraph below, does your concern relate to Cross Party Groups – such as the one on Deaf Issues – or other Assembly business (for example plenary sessions or committees)? Clarity on this issue will help the Members to decide how they can take the petition forward.

In the second paragraph, are you referring to using the ‘Search’ function on the general Assembly website (www.assembly.wales) or somewhere else? If so, this might be difficult for the Committee to take forward because the search brings up a wide range of results from different parts of Assembly business and the references to ‘deaf’ or hearing loss will often be from contributions made by Assembly Members in debates or committees and not official publications or articles by the Assembly.

Please let me know if I have misunderstood either of your points.

Many thanks

Graeme

Graeme Francis

Clerk/Clerc

Petitions Committee/Pwyllgor Deisebau

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, primarily we were concerned at the total lack of access to the cross-party area on deafness and hearing loss, and other coverage of the assembly, which has 'in house' video coverage that isn't accessible either. Apart from being inaccessible, it lacks inclusion too, and appears to vanish altogether it never disseminated proceedings effectively either. I would have much preferred as this all-party committee was set up for us, if we had the coverage and access to it, we never did in reality, and we are in limbo at present as to who if anyone, is forwarding access concerns to the Senedd. I did contact several welsh AM's but they insisted they couldn't comment?

In part the difficulties to accessing the website, because we cannot use that website as an alternative to gaining information on our area. I contacted the web site people and they were not really helpful.

Hope this helps.

M E James