Miss-Delectable

Council ‘not providing help for the deaf’ - icWales

THE British Deaf Association has criticised Cardiff council over the provision of sign language interpreters.

During the past four years, the city’s deaf community has repeatedly clashed with the local authority over its failure to provide interpreters.

A spokesman for the British Deaf Association said problems had included:

n Interpreters not being provided for children’s parents’ evenings

n Deaf people being unable to sort out incorrect council tax charges or understand their own eviction proceedings

n Interpreters not being provided for meetings with local councillors.

Dafydd Everleigh of the BDA said the problems stemmed from the move away from centrally-funded interpreters in 2003, which gave individual departments the responsibility to provide sign-language interpreters.

He said: “Interpreter provision is very poor in Cardiff.

“I have supported a number of clients with regard to this issue, in addition to clients from other local authority areas in South Wales.”

Cedric Moon, a deaf father from Whitchurch, Cardiff, has had several problems, including battling with the council for an interpreter to attend a meeting about the city’s schools reorganisation proposals and the refusal to provide an interpreter so he could meet his local councillor.

Because of his complaints, and those of other deaf city residents, the Equality and Human Rights Commission wrote to the council last November warning the council of its responsibilities under the Disability Discrimination Act.

Whitchurch councillor Sophie Howe, who has been supporting Mr Moon, said: “It is absolutely unfair on him. The council should have in place proper mechanisms to enable these matters to be resolved.”

A council spokeswoman said that a sensory impairment strategy would be going to the executive for approval this month. She said: “We recognise how important it is to meet the communication needs of all our citizens and communities.

“We provide a broad range of services for deaf and hard-of- hearing people within our social care and schools services, and have also established a variety of communication channels using our Connect 2 Cardiff contact centre.”

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