British Sign Language

Revenue Scotland has produced a British Sign Language Plan (BSL) outlining how the organisation will improve accessibility to its services for D/deaf and Deafblind BSL taxpayers. The publication follows consultation with BSL community representatives on draft proposals in October and November 2018, and sets out the actions Revenue Scotland intends to take to promote and support BSL users over the period from 2018-24.

Background

The Scottish Government published a British Sign Language (BSL) National Plan 2017-23 in October 2017 following extensive engagement with D/deaf and Deafblind BSL users. The purpose of the plan is to ensure D/deaf and Deafblind BSL users are fully involved in all aspects of daily and public life, and to make Scotland the best place in the world for BSL users to live, work and visit by promoting and supporting BSL and those who use it. The British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015 requires certain public bodies to publish their own BSL plans, aligned with the National Plan.

Consultation Outcomes

Revenue Scotland’s ambitions for the D/deaf and Deafblind community were endorsed by the vast majority of respondents to the consultation carried out at the end of 2018. Respondents highlighted the importance of easier accessibility to Revenue Scotland services, in particular the need to create tax guidance in a format suitable for those with different accessibility needs; employment opportunities with Revenue Scotland and staff training in deaf awareness. To reduce the number of barriers BSL users face in accessing information about tax and tax services, it has also been suggested that Revenue Scotland could work with the wider D/deaf Deafblind community and stakeholders to increase awareness and understanding of the devolved taxes and the role and remit of Revenue Scotland

What’s next

Revenue Scotland is already delivering the work set out in the plan and further updates will be published in due course.

Revenue Scotland will continue to engage with the BSL community around implementing the Plan, and providing feedback on progress to assess how the plan is working in practice.