Policy paper

British Sign Language 5-year plan: Cabinet Office (English and BSL versions)

Published 21 July 2025

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

BSL version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnb_idQFWtU

About the Cabinet Office

The Cabinet Office (CO) supports the Prime Minister and ensures the effective running of government. As the corporate headquarters for the government, in partnership with HM Treasury (HMT), we take the lead in certain critical policy areas, including:

• supporting collective government, helping to ensure the effective development, coordination and implementation of policy
• promoting efficiency and reform across government and by transforming the delivery of services
• creating an exceptional Civil Service, improving its capability and effectiveness

As a ministerial department, we have been asked to produce our own 5-year BSL Plan and we want to be ambitious. Everyone in our country should have access to important information from the government and should be able to engage with the government on issues that will affect them. This includes Deaf people who use BSL as their first language. 

Overview

This government is strongly committed to ensuring that our communications are accessible and inclusive, and to reducing the barriers Deaf people face in their everyday lives.

CO aims to enhance the use of British Sign Language (BSL) across government departments in accordance with the BSL Act 2022. Our 5-year plan prioritises 4 key areas:

1. Improving BSL communications sent by CO
2. Supporting other departments to deliver their BSL commitments
3. Raising awareness of BSL across the Civil Service
4. Streamlining processes for BSL content creation 

This plan sets out our department’s ambitions to be a leader in enabling and producing accessible communications for BSL users.

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1. Improving BSL communications within CO

Short-term goals

Continue to try to provide BSL interpretation ‘in vision’ during live streams of the Prime Minister’s major government speeches. Where speeches do not have political content, make the interpretation available afterwards on GOV.UK. 

Strengthen relationships with external BSL technology providers and UK broadcasters to support more comprehensive BSL coverage for government announcements.

Translate more CO press releases into BSL, starting with those related to core advice that helps the Deaf community to keep themselves, loved ones and businesses safe.

Appoint an accountable senior leader within CO to promote the use of BSL in CO. 

Promote good practice amongst our CO Line Management Community.

Longer-term goals

Continue to increase the proportion of external communications from CO which are available in BSL, to include major CO minister press conferences and speeches. 

Continue to work with members of the Deaf community, including the government’s BSL Advisory Board, on how we can continue to improve accessibility of our communications. 

Relevant CO teams to collaborate with the BSL Advisory Board to consider more original content tailored to the Deaf community.

2. Supporting other government departments

Short-term goals

The Disability Unit (DU) will work with the BSL Advisory Board to issue statutory guidance promoting the facilitation and use of BSL as mandated by the BSL Act.

CO will encourage the appointment of Senior Responsible Officers across key ministerial departments to work with DU to identify and mitigate barriers to more accessible BSL communication across government.  

Longer-term goals

DU will lead initiatives for cross-government support and collaboration in BSL implementation. This involves influencing all departments towards improved BSL communication standards, working through our Lead Ministers for Disability.

We will encourage ministerial departments delivering the government’s missions and other major campaigns and communications to consider where BSL is needed to meet Deaf BSL users’ needs as part of their strategic planning. 

Explore how best to support non-ministerial departments, non-departmental public bodies and other arm’s-length bodies who are currently not in scope of the BSL Act to use BSL translation and interpreting where it meets the needs of their audiences.

Engage with all government departments to consider how best to make their internal staff communications inclusive, working through the Heads of Internal Communications network. 

Share BSL resources for events leads across the government via the Government Event Managers’ network to ensure that these services can be procured for any staff member attending government internal events. 

3. Raising awareness across the Civil Service

Short-term goals

Build greater understanding of BSL and the BSL Act 2022 through training and awareness sessions for staff and managers.

Explore strategies for incorporating feedback from Deaf civil servants into ongoing practices.

Longer-term goals

Develop a comprehensive strategy for embedding BSL awareness into regular Civil Service communications guidance.

Evaluate and identify opportunities for improving communication and development of employee policy in BSL.

Explore options to host BSL training on the Civil Service Learning platform.

4. Improving processes for BSL content creation

Short-term goals

Work with government commercial services to continue to improve the quality and accessibility of BSL translations and interpretation services as procured from external suppliers.

Identify digital barriers and explore opportunities to use technology more effectively for BSL translation of GOV.UK.

Longer-term goals

Ensure BSL requirements are effectively integrated into commercial frameworks.

Work with the BSL Advisory Board technology subgroup to explore technological solutions like responsible, high-quality, AI-powered BSL interpretation to enhance efficiency.

Conclusion

Through this strategic plan, CO seeks to reduce barriers and promote accessibility to BSL for Deaf people accessing government communications. 

Our initiatives aim to set standards across all departments, ensuring BSL is embedded broadly and seamlessly within government communications.