IN launching Police Scotland’s Gaelic Language Plan, Assistant Chief Constable Andrew Cowie has spoken about the importance of upholding traditional languages. Gaelic has a significant role to play in the wellbeing of communities, said Mr Cowie, and Police Scotland recognises the language as an important aspect of Scotland’s heritage.
The Gaelic Language Plan also lays out what the force’s commitment to the language could mean in practice. From next year for instance, the force’s logo will be bi-lingual. The force will also identify officers and staff who speak Gaelic and those who wish to learn the language will be encouraged to do so, the ultimate aim being to maximise the chances of the public being able to speak to Police Scotland staff in Gaelic and receive their responses in Gaelic too.
Police Scotland should not be surprised, however, if its plans are met with some scepticism. The force says its new policy will be cost neutral, but at a time when it faces a budget overspend of £17.5million and redundancies among civilian staff are threatened, it must be able to reassure the public it has its priorities right. We should also be able to trust that the force has done its research and knows its new policy is justified by demand.
Provided it can offer such reassurances, Police Scotland’s new policy on Gaelic should be welcomed and has no doubt been inspired in part by the signs of growth in Gaelic nationwide.
There has been an increase in the number of young people learning to speak the language, for example. More parents are also being attracted to the benefits of a bi-lingual upbringing – applications for spaces at the Gaelic Medium Primary School, in the Pollokshields area of Glasgow, in 2016 were 40 per cent up on the year before.
It will take time to develop these signs of growth. But Police Scotland’s Gaelic Language Plan could be one way of building on them.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel