Corporate report

Companies House Welsh language monitoring report 2022 to 2023

Published 24 April 2024

1. Introduction

The Companies House Welsh Language Scheme was prepared in accordance with section 21(3) of the Welsh Language Act and received the full endorsement of the Welsh Language Board on 20 April 2010.

This report covers the period from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.

Companies House is proud to have its Head office in Cardiff and of the Welsh language services we offer to our customers. Since we established our Welsh Language Unit in September 2020, we feel that communication has improved across all areas of Companies House and all Welsh customer services are monitored by the Welsh Language Unit to ensure that we are providing a service of a high standard to our Welsh customers. 

We have also maintained a Welsh Language Committee that meets regularly to monitor progress and performance, along with a team of Welsh speakers we can consult on everyday issues. Membership of the committee is drawn from across the organisation, including our Director of Transformation Delivery who acts as chair.

2. Interpretation

“CH” means Companies House.

“2006 Act” means the Companies Act 2006.

“The Registrar” means the Registrar of Companies “LLP” means Limited Liability Partnership.

“LP” means Limited Partnership.

“Welsh company/LLP” means a company or LLP, as defined by section 88 of the 2006 Act (as applied to LLPs), which has given notice to the Registrar that its registered office is to be situated in Wales. On incorporation, a company must indicate if its registered office is to be situated in Wales, England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. The company’s registered office address must be in the country where they have stated that their registered office is to be situated.

A Welsh company has the option, under the Companies Act 2006, of having a Welsh company name and Welsh name ending (for example, cyfyngedig, cwmni cyfyngedig cyhoeddus) and can file statutory documents in Welsh. An England and Wales company can have a registered office address in Wales or England but cannot have a Welsh company name or Welsh name ending and cannot file statutory documents in Welsh.

3. Achievements

The current reporting period has seen CH build on the transformative and reforming environment of 2021 to 2022. During this exceptionally busy period, the organisation progressed work to deliver fundamental changes to the way in which it operates and contributes to driving confidence in the UK economy.

In April 2022 we collaborated with HMRC and the Financial Reporting Council to develop Welsh taxonomies. This is the first time that the Welsh taxonomies have been available for companies to file using Welsh software. Before this, only English taxonomies were available. This is an important step forward for Welsh companies.

We introduced a new online service and our Welsh Language Unit worked closely with the project team and content designers to ensure that this service was bilingual and that the Welsh and English service went live at the same time. We are pleased to report that this was a great success.

As a result of introducing our Welsh Language Unit in September 2020, we continue to receive more communication from customers in every area of CH. We have been promoting the Welsh language services that we offer and through this we have increased the number of customers contacting us in Welsh.

With the introduction of our Welsh Language Unit in September 2020, we are now receiving more Welsh communication from customers in all areas of CH. We have done a lot of work to promote the Welsh services we offer and feel that we have had more communication from Welsh speaking customers because of this.

We are part of the ‘Cardiff Commitment’ project and for the first time have chosen a Welsh School to collaborate with ‘Ysgol Gymraeg Glantaf’. Our Welsh Language Unit and our HR department have attended many meetings with the school to discuss how we can work together effectively in the future.

Now that the Civil Service Job Site is available in Welsh, we have been advertising jobs bilingually through the site to recruit in our operational areas. This is to try and attract Welsh speakers to join CH. We have also marketed these on our social media channels through the Welsh language.

4. Compliance with the Welsh Language Scheme

CH remains committed to complying with its Welsh Language Scheme. From 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023, CH’s Welsh Committee met bi-monthly to ensure adherence to the CH Welsh Language Scheme and review progress against the Action Plan, which is attached to this report. Welsh service meetings were also held to consider the services offered to Welsh speaking customers.

A team of Welsh speakers from various areas within CH continued to respond to customer enquiries. During the reporting period 12 customers asked to speak in Welsh and we received 20 emails to the Companies House general enquiries email address. 20 customers contacted our Welsh language unit directly and they were very happy with the prompt service they received due to this.

In this reporting period, 52 Welsh speaking customers contacted CH directly with general queries, including:

• confirmation that documents have been received, and assistance with filing documents
• support with changing a company from a company with shares to a company limited by guarantee
• support to cancel company application as there was an error in the name
• support with liquidation of company
• support with Filing online accounts
• support to establish a community interest company
• guidance on how to apply for verification code as its registered office address has changed
• a query on Welsh articles and on a resolution

We continued to make the most filed forms – which make up 95% of filings on the register – available bilingually, both in paper form and electronically. The Welsh language Unit worked closely with the digital teams to develop several new systems to be available bilingually.

The Welsh Language Unit continues to attend sessions with the Digital Public Services Centre (Welsh Government) to share good practice and discuss how we can improve bilingual services and encourage people to choose Welsh when using our services.

We continued to review CH guidance to ensure that all guidance created by CH is available bilingually, other than that which is specifically not applicable to Welsh companies (for example, guidance on matters that affect only Scottish companies).

Customers who corresponded with CH in Welsh received a response in Welsh. All departments in CH communicate with our Welsh Language Unit to ensure that the customer has their correspondence in the language of their choice. The unit provided a translation service for each department.

We have since September 2020 placed a Welsh marker on all Welsh companies to ensure that they receive bilingual correspondence across the organisation. We no longer require our customers to register for this service. We fully appreciated the importance of this being an active offer and that they did not need to ask for Welsh correspondence. 222 Welsh markers were placed on Companies during this reporting period.

Each set of Welsh language accounts received from Welsh companies were translated into English for the public record, as required by law. 55 Welsh accounts were translated to English in this reporting period by the Welsh Language Unit.

Additionally, we continued to translate correspondence into Welsh to satisfy the requirements of our Welsh Language Scheme. This included letters, guidance, project work and translations for the website and online services. 

All contracts issued included a clause ensuring that our service partners comply with CH Welsh Language commitments.

CH continued to participate in the UK government inter-departmental CALL Committee. The committee regularly brings together representatives from the Welsh Language Units of various UK government departments and provides an ideal forum to share best practice and find solutions to improving our Welsh language services with a mind to achieving a more standardised approach across government. Colleagues from the CALL Committee provided support for the establishment of the WLU at CH.

We had new signage across the whole building and all these signs were bilingual.

5. Mainstreaming the Welsh Language

We continued to consider our Welsh services at the earliest stage of all projects through the inclusion of Welsh in all project managers’ checklists and other development plans. The Welsh Language Unit manager now sits on various panels to drive this forward.

We continued to share Welsh language messages on our corporate Twitter account, which now has over 23,000 followers during 2022 to 2023. These posts were viewed 21,103 times and covered topics such as scam awareness, filing online and on time, our Welsh language unit, and change to the business.

We continued to consider our Welsh services during all projects through routinely including Welsh translations of our GOV.UK content. We have also continued to update Welsh language pages as needed.

We continued to prioritise providing Welsh language content on GOV.UK over the last year. We’ve worked with the Government Digital Service (GDS) to secure a Welsh language version of our new campaign site on changes to UK company law which will be published in the coming months.

We ran 4 campaigns in the financial year 2022 to 2023, all of which featured Welsh resources and content. For each campaign we created a stakeholder site that included suggested copy, content, information and creative assets in Welsh:

• Your business. Your journey. Your choice.
• File on time. File online. (September 2022)
• File on time. File online. (December 2022)
• Equality, diversity and inclusion at Companies House

We updated the Working for Companies House and Being a company director GOV.UK pages with campaign content and published Welsh language creative and messages on our social media channels. We also published 3 campaign news stories in Welsh:

• File Companies House accounts early and online to avoid penalties
• Companies urged to file accounts early and online to avoid penalties
• Celebrating our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion at Companies House

6. Performance indicators

In the reporting period, there were 6,474 (6,435 last year) Welsh jurisdiction companies and 17 Welsh jurisdiction LLPs incorporated (18 last year). There were 801,006 company incorporations in total and 5,472 LLPs.

By the end of the reporting period, there were 31,096 Welsh jurisdiction companies and 158 Welsh jurisdiction LLPs on the register (156 last year) compared with a total of 5,116,743 companies.

By the end of the reporting period, there were 1,775 (1,711 last year) Welsh companies and 7 LLPs (7 LLPs last year) incorporated with a Welsh name ending on the register.

7. Contact centre

There are 2 full time members of Welsh speaking staff at the contact centre. There is a contractual requirement to provide a service through the medium of Welsh.   

If a customer specifically asks to speak to a Welsh speaker and one is not available, we offer the customer the choice of completing the call in English or request the customer’s contact telephone number so that a Welsh speaker can contact them directly, as per our Welsh Language Scheme.

CH also has a designated group who can respond to Welsh related queries. This is communicated to all members of staff through our internal communications.

The Welsh Language Unit holds regular meetings with the contact centre to ensure that everyone understands the importance of having Welsh language provision, no matter how small the number who currently contact us.

8. Public reception

 For security reasons, a decision was made to close the reception to the public. The staff in the reception now work within different areas of the organisation. Improved site security and access at Companies House Cardiff.

9. Language training and awareness

Companies House has continued to promote opportunities for staff to develop their Welsh language skills and also opportunities for staff to use their Welsh at work. We are happy to say that we now can hold events in the office as well as continuing to provide opportunities online. The organisation has a hybrid approach to working in the office so it is important that opportunities are offered through teams and in the building.

In September, the Welsh language unit started a ‘Caffi Cymraeg’ in the building to give new Welsh speakers and fluent Welsh speakers an opportunity to get together and use their Welsh at work. This initiative has been a great success with a variety of people from all areas in the organisation attending. Everyone who attends also play an important part to champion the Welsh language in their own areas of the organisation too.

The Welsh language Unit also puts regular articles and Welsh language vocabulary on Interact (our internal intranet site). This has raised awareness and ensured the Welsh language has visibility across the whole of CH. The Welsh Language Unit also has a permanent page on Interact which includes guidance for each area on Welsh communications, our Welsh Language Scheme, and a list of Welsh speakers in each area.

The Welsh Language Unit internal social page is very visible in the organisation, and we continue to provide Welsh content and advertise our events on here. We also advertise community events to create a wider visibility of Welsh language opportunities to our staff.

We have also created a Welsh Language Unit SharePoint page for the whole organisation so that there is a central place for staff to find information about every possible opportunity in Welsh and Welsh language guidance for each department within the organisation. The page also includes our Welsh language Scheme so that all departments understand the importance and their responsibilities. We also keep every blog we have made, and a recording of the events offered so far.

CH offered Welsh Language learning opportunities to all staff in line with its Adult Education Scheme. The organisation has fully supported those who have taken advantage of this opportunity by covering the cost of the course, as well as providing facilitation time to study.

In September we started a new cohort of learning, so we now have 23 people actively learning Welsh in Companies House. These lessons are provided by Learn Welsh Glamorgan and the staff have their lessons weekly and these still happen on Microsoft Teams. This works well as the learners all go into the office on different days etc because of the new ways of working.

We built on the line-only St David’s Day event and the Welsh Language Unit held a St David’s Day event in the building and allowed people to join in on Microsoft Teams. Over 300 staff from across TC attended and it was a great success. A variety of people took part in the event ranging from singing, reading and more.

The Welsh Language Unit invited the local Welsh School ‘Ysgol Gymraeg Mynydd Bychan’ to take part in the concert and there was a sense of passion while the children sang a variety of Welsh songs. This created awareness of the Welsh language across the organisation.

A video was created of the employees who are currently learning Welsh and the video was shown during the event. As a result of this, more people have shown an interest in learning.

CH continued to encourage and support volunteer days which we believe are a positive means of contributing to the local community while developing Welsh language skills. The Welsh Language Unit and other Welsh speakers in CH have volunteered on Urdd events and at a STEM LEGO event at the Principality stadium with local Welsh Schools from the Cardiff area. This is a great way of promoting the Welsh language at Companies House to the wider community.

10. Complaints

During this reporting period there was 1 instance in which customers contacted CH relating to its Welsh language service. 

A company submitted 2 sets of accounts on paper in English and Welsh but there was an error on the English copy, so the accounts were not accepted. As a result of this, the company was given a late filing penalty. The company appealed against the penalty and its basis for the appeal was that they had a lawful right to send in a Welsh-only copy and the English copy was by courtesy only.

The late penalties unit had several meetings with our Welsh Language Unit and our policy team about this and it was decided that the right process had not been followed. The Welsh set of accounts should have been accepted and there is now a new policy in place to ensure everyone follows this process. The company was advised and were happy with the result that the fine was no longer issued.

The Welsh Language Unit translates each set of accounts we receive in Welsh only into English for the public register.

11. Conclusion

Our Welsh Language Unit and the Welsh Committee will continue to ensure that Companies House is aware of their responsibilities under the Welsh Language Scheme and that everybody sees the importance of a proactive Welsh language offering to our customers.

We remain committed to providing an excellent Welsh language service for our customers and will work with all departments in CH to continue to champion bilingualism across the organisation. We are very excited about the future of the Welsh language here at Companies House and have seen positive improvements since the development of our Welsh Language Unit in September 2020.

12. Action plan

12.1 Legislation and initiatives

Action required	Target date	Action owner	Progress to date / notes
Review action plan on a quarterly basis	Quarterly	The Welsh Language Unit	The content of the action plan was reviewed as part of the Welsh Language Committee which met bi-monthly in 2022 to 2023.
Review strategic plan quarterly to link to the Welsh Language action plan	Quarterly	The Welsh Language Unit	Our commitment to Welsh language services underpins 2 of our key strategic goals: Brilliant services that give a great user experience and Registers of data that inspire trust and confidence.
Consider how new policies, projects and developments will conform with the commitments set out in the Welsh Language Scheme	Ongoing	The Welsh Language Unit	We have continued, and will continue, to consider our Welsh Language Scheme in new policies, developments, and projects.
Enable “Welsh Experience” incorporation for Welsh companies	October 2012	Business Solutions Delivery	This was completed in October 2012.
Enable full online incorporation for Welsh companies at CH	March 2013	Business Solutions Delivery	This was completed on 6 April 2013.
Improve the WebFiling Change of name service to produce a translation of the certificate (currently under review)	March 2013	Customer Delivery Directorate	As we further develop the CH beta service for customers, CH will develop more end-to-end Welsh services. The work on this has now commenced.

12.2 Staffing

Action required	Target date	Action owner	Progress to date / notes
Maintain ongoing Welsh Language training, targeted at language speaking skills	Ongoing	The Welsh Language Unit/Human Resources	The Welsh Language Unit arranged online Welsh lessons for 23 people across CH through the University of Glamorgan. The Welsh language Unit is also providing opportunities for staff to use and practice their Welsh at the workplace. It is important in CH culture that the staff feel like they can bring their whole selves to work and part of this is being able to use their language of choice at work.
Ensure Welsh speaking staff are present in all major operational areas to provide cover for Welsh speaking customers	Ongoing	Directors	CH ensures Welsh speaking staff are available in all areas to examine Welsh filings or respond to Welsh customers. We also now have our Welsh language unit to support this. The Welsh Language Unit has also identified new staff who are Welsh speakers and are supporting them to increase their confidence to use their Welsh in work.
Internally promote CH’s requirements under the Welsh Language Scheme, ensuring staff understand their responsibilities and where to seek assistance	Ongoing	Welsh language Unit/Strategy and Policy	We regularly made staff aware of our commitment to our Welsh Language Scheme on our internal intranet site. The Welsh language Unit have also been holding Welsh awareness sessions with the different teams. Ensuring that all the teams know the correct systems to follow with the Welsh customers. The Welsh Language Unit has now also created a permanent page on the Intranet site containing guidance for each area, a copy of our Welsh Language Scheme and a list of Welsh speakers in each area.
Maintain Welsh team in CH to provide cover for Welsh speaking customers and hold regular meetings to discuss issues and progress	Ongoing	Welsh Language Unit/Customer Delivery	The Welsh team continued to provide cover and meet regularly.

12.3 Publicity campaigns, exhibitions, advertising and press releases

Action required	Target date	Action owner	Progress to date / notes
Ensure Welsh speakers attend all events at which there is a CH presence in Wales	Ongoing	Events team	When we do attend events in the future this will happen.
Ensure Welsh literature is available at events held in Wales	Ongoing	Events team	When we do attend events in the future this will happen.
Ensure adverts and press releases are available in Welsh, when published in Wales	Ongoing	Human Resources	Where job adverts are published in Welsh press, they are bilingual. We have also been advertising specific jobs bilingually now that Civil service jobs is available in Welsh at last.

12.4 Publications and forms

Action required	Target date	Action owner	Progress to date / notes
Ensure CH Welsh publications are updated in parallel with English versions	Ongoing	Strategy and Policy	CH continues to ensure that Welsh publications are updated at the same time as English publications.
Ensure Welsh statutory forms are updated in parallel with English versions	Ongoing	Strategy and Policy	CH continues to ensure that Welsh forms are updated at the same time as English forms.
Monitor usage of letters to ensure Welsh versions are used where appropriate	Ongoing	Business Change Development	CH continues to monitor usage of letters to ensure a response is provided in Welsh where required. Throughout the period our Customer Delivery Support team have reviewed the provision of our Welsh letters.

12.5 Websites

Action required	Target date	Action owner	Progress to date / notes
Ensure the Welsh website is updated in parallel with the English version, when relevant, and that the information on the Welsh website is up to date	Ongoing	External Communications/Welsh Language Unit	We continued to increase Welsh content on GOV.UK. The Welsh language Unit monitor this and have regular meetings with the External communications team.
Social media	Ongoing	External Communications/Welsh Language Unit	We ensure that Welsh Twitter and Facebook posts are posted on a regular basis. This is important to encourage more Welsh customers to communicate with us in Welsh. We have a message on both platforms to say that we welcome correspondence in Welsh.

12.6 Face-to-face meetings

Action required	Target date	Action owner	Progress to date / notes
Ensure that customers can request a Welsh speaker should they wish to conduct their business in Welsh	Ongoing	Welsh Language Unit/Customer Services	There is no longer face to face meetings happening, but we could office this service over Microsoft Teams if requested.

12.7 Telephone communications

Action required	Target date	Action owner	Progress to date / notes
Ensure that customers who want to conduct their business in Welsh can speak to a Welsh speaker	Ongoing	Contact Centre/Customer Services/Welsh Language Unit	There’s a system in place to ensure that the customer can communicate with us in their language of choice.

12.8 Signs

Action required	Target date	Action owner	Progress to date / notes
Ensure that all public signage for the Cardiff office is displayed bilingually	Ongoing	Building Services/Welsh language Unit	All public signage is produced bilingually. The Welsh Language Unit has recently provided translations and we now have new bilingual signage across CH.

12.9 Complaints

To ensure complaints about CH’s Welsh language service are fully investigated and dealt with promptly, in line with the CH normal complaints procedure	Ongoing	Welsh Language Unit	Paragraph 10 of the report
Monitor complaints regarding bilingual service	Ongoing	Welsh Language Unit	The Welsh Language Unit monitors all complaints regarding the bilingual service as per paragraph 10 of the report.