Complaints and investigation procedure: Welsh language schemes

Who can make a complaint?

Anyone can make a complaint to the Commissioner about an organisation implementing a Welsh language scheme regarding:

Lack of opportunities to use Welsh when receiving services
Difficulties using Welsh at work
Dissatisfaction with how an organisation has considered the Welsh language when making decisions

If you are not in a position to do this yourself, someone else can make a complaint on your behalf. You will need to give your consent for this.

How do I make a complaint?

Before you can make a complaint to the Commissioner, you must first submit your complaint to the organisation that you are unhappy with, and give them a reasonable opportunity to respond and offer a solution.

If you do not receive a response, or are dissatisfied with the outcome or the process followed, you can then submit your complaint to the Commissioner.

Complaints must be submitted in writing. You can do this via:

Complaint form on our website
Email post@cyg-wlc.cymru
Social media
Post

If you cannot submit a written complaint due to your circumstances, you can contact us by phone or any other suitable means to explain and discuss your complaint. We will make reasonable provision to help you submit your complaint in another way.

What information do I need to provide?

Please give us as much information as possible about what happened, including:

Which organisation you are complaining about
What you are complaining about and a description of what happened
Relevant dates and times
The organisation’s response to your complaint (where applicable)
Evidence to support your complaint (e.g. photos, documents, copies of letters, phone numbers, etc.)

What happens after I submit a complaint?

Within 5 working days we will:

Acknowledge receipt of your complaint
Tell you whether your complaint is valid
If valid, we may ask you for further information
Forward your complaint to the organization you are complaining about and ask them to respond within 10 working days

What happens next?

After receiving the organisation’s response, we will decide whether to open an investigation into your complaint.

No investigation

Opening an investigation

If we open an investigation, we will inform you and the organisation concerned of our decision and explain our reasons. We will also identify the specific clauses of the language scheme that we will investigate.

Conducting an investigation will allow us to:

Prepare a report on what happened
Decide whether the organization failed to comply with its Welsh language scheme
Make recommendations to the organisation to restore compliance and ensure the failure does not happen again

Evidence

We will usually ask the organization to provide evidence in response to the complaint. This may be in response to a series of questions we ask or a request for specific evidence (e.g. reports, meeting records, screenshots, etc.).

We may also ask you for additional information or evidence.

Draft report and decision

Once we have enough evidence, we will prepare a draft investigation report. The draft report will include:

Description of the complaint
Summary of the evidence
Decision on whether the organisation complied with specific clauses of the Welsh language scheme
Our reasons for reaching the decision
Information about the recommendations we will make to the organisation and our reasons for them
Information about any further steps we will take

We will share the draft report with you and the organisation, giving at least 20 working days for you to respond. We encourage you to respond, but you do not have to if you do not wish to.

Final report and decision

We will carefully consider any comments we receive before deciding whether changes are needed. After that, we will share the final report and decision with you, the organisation, and the Secretary of State / Welsh Ministers (as applicable).

Monitoring further steps

Although we cannot force an organisation to implement our recommendations, we will ask them to provide evidence that those steps have been completed.

Are there other opportunities to comment on the investigation?

We are happy to receive comments from you and the organisation while the investigation is open. You can do this by submitting your comments in writing to post@cyg-wlc.cymru.

Will information about the investigation be published?

We publish all reports on investigations into compliance with Welsh language schemes on our website.

What if I cannot respond in writing to different stages of the investigation?

We can discuss what support or adjustments are suitable for you. For example, we can offer:

Different communication methods
Additional support
Specific arrangements according to your needs

You can contact us by phone on 0345 603 3221 or through any of our communication channels.