Policy paper

British Sign Language 5-year plan: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (English and BSL versions)

Published 21 July 2025

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

BSL version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n5AktqRzEU

Introduction

Our vision is for a future Defra that puts customers and citizens at the heart of all we do, making it easy for them to help us create a cleaner, greener, and better protected future. At the heart of this is an ambition to ensure our services are inclusive and accessible to all. Ensuring equal access, opportunity, and inclusion for our British Sign Language (BSL) community across the wide-ranging customer groups that Defra serves is an important part of this. 

Here at Defra, we are committed to improving equality and outcomes for all. It is important to us that we recognise the accessibility challenges for BSL users, and act upon them. We know we need to do more, and our 5-year plan sets out our future intentions and represents our ongoing commitment to delivering for BSL users. 

As a department, Defra contributes to the BSL report which is a report describing what each relevant government department has done to promote or facilitate the use of BSL in its communications with the public.  These communications include:

• public announcements about policy or about changes to the law
• publications of any plan, strategy, consultation document or consultation response, or any explanatory or supporting materials 
• use of press conferences, social media, or a government website to publicise any of its activities or policies

Our future ambition is to build a culture and department approach where BSL is embedded with inclusive policy making, service design and delivery. To meet our ambition we have developed a number of goals under the following 4 priority areas:

1. Promote and increase BSL communications

2. BSL Research

3. BSL Accessibility

4. Capability

Each of the priorities has a mix of goals that will be delivered in the 5-year life of this plan. This will help build the foundations required to meet our longer-term ambition for BSL integration into Defra. 

Defra is a ministerial department supported by agencies and public bodies. With such a vast array of services we will take a strategic approach to our plan, concentrating on areas where we can make the greatest positive impact for the Deaf community.

Delivering our plan

We will launch the plan across Defra to embed the use of BSL with inclusive policy making, service design and delivery. This will be led by the Communications Directorate and Defra’s Customer Inclusion and Experience team. We have chosen these teams for their work on communications and customer inclusion. In addition, they are well positioned to have oversight across the department. 

1. Promote and increase BSL communications 

While customers contacting the department can sometimes opt to use a BSL video relay service, and all social media videos are captioned for accessibility, there is more work required to embed BSL into the department’s proactive communications.

How we will do this

In year 1 we will:

• launch and promote the BSL 5-year improvement plan across the department
• promote available guidance, to increase awareness and good practice across Defra
• embed the importance of BSL in the planning stages for external communications and GOV.UK content, ensuring this is documented as part of our Public Sector Equality Duty
• identify and engage with policy areas that could have the biggest impact when using BSL in communications with the public
• translate appropriate existing GOV.UK content into BSL – for example, international pet travel and complaints guidance

In years 2 and 3 we will:

• start working to make BSL translations of communications available at the same time as they are published in written English

In years 4 and 5 we will have:

• continued to improve the provision of communications translated into BSL across the department
• established an awareness of the importance of BSL communications and built a good understanding of how to go about producing the communications

2. BSL research 

It is important to understand the experience of BSL users when shaping public communications. To do this we will work with the Deaf community and organisations to understand how policy and communications affect those who are Deaf and hard of hearing to better understand their needs. We will use this insight to shape our approach to how we communicate, with the aim of making our communications as inclusive and accessible as possible. 

How we will do this

In year 1 we will:

• identify and engage with individuals and organisations representing the BSL community 
• engage with other government departments to identify best practice and opportunities for learning

In years 2 and 3 we will have:

• an increased awareness of best practice as informed by stakeholders 
• consulted with members of the BSL community in user research to improve our BSL provision
• put into practice the insight from other government departments

In years 4 and 5 we will have:

• learning and best practice embedded in Defra’s public documents and in communications, including certain social media videos
• established strong relationships with the BSL users and associated organisations who we will continue to work with

3. BSL accessibility

We want to promote and develop sustainable approaches across our department that enable inclusive policy making, service design and delivery. This means establishing a process for teams to produce BSL communications to ensure that BSL users have access to information affecting their daily lives, in the right format and at the right time. 

How we will do this

In year 1 we will:

• provide guidance to ensure colleagues understand how they can access BSL services to procure translation that meet the needs of the BSL community

In years 2 and 3 we will have:

• identified any risks, barriers and issues with current processes and made improvements

In years 4 and 5 we will have:

• developed approaches to procuring and producing BSL communications in a user-friendly and sustainable way
• kept informed about best practice and innovation in the use of AI for BSL translation

4. Capability

Capability is about giving our teams the training and knowledge to be able to understand why and how to provide BSL communications. 

We will work with Defra group communications to identify the current knowledge and capability for the provision of BSL communications across Defra group. As part of this work, we will promote the Government Communication Service internal guidance which includes best practice and things to consider when planning communications for BSL users. 

How we will do this

In year 1 we will:

• identify current knowledge and capability
• develop a plan to address any gaps in knowledge and capability
• promote the Government Communication Service internal guidance, with particular support given to areas assessed to have lower knowledge and capability of BSL communications

In years 2 and 3 we will have:

• run sessions to improve the awareness and capability of our internal staff within our organisation on the needs of BSL users

In years 4 and 5 we will have:

• training and guidance available to Defra and its agencies that supports and enables the provision of BSL communications

If you have any feedback or questions about the BSL Improvement plan please email: improvingcustomerdelivery@defra.gov.uk