Policy paper

British Sign Language 5-year plan: Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (English and BSL versions)

Published 21 July 2025

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

BSL version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9qkOPSDEWo

Introduction 

Inclusivity is a priority for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as a department, including its ministers, our Permanent Secretary and our senior leaders.

For example, DSIT’s work to promote digital inclusion means ensuring digital information, tools and services, documents and applications can be understood and operated by as many people as possible without barriers. 

This also means our communications must also be inclusive and accessible, not only meeting our legislative obligations, but truly embedding best practice as our default setting. 

DSIT’s 5-year BSL Improvement Plan forms part of the ongoing development of the department’s strategic approach to inclusion. It is structured around:

• our vision for BSL communications: what DSIT’s BSL communications culture will look and feel like by 2030 
• context: our main BSL activities to date and the barriers we will overcome to allow us to go further  
• strategy: the principles – people, procurement and planning – that will overcome barriers and achieve our vision  
• delivery plan: the specific actions and milestones that will deliver on our strategy  
• governance and monitoring: who will take this work forward, how they will do it, and how we will keep track of our performance 

Our vision for BSL communications 

DSIT’s status as a relatively new department, combined with our role as the department for innovation, means the communications team is proud to champion new ways of engaging citizens in DSIT’s work. 

We aim to build on this positive organisational culture by applying this spirit of innovation to engaging BSL users. These 5 goals capture our vision for the next 5 years: 

1. DSIT communications professionals will increasingly know what best practice in BSL communications looks like and be able to provide it. We will work with the BSL community to explore how digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), can support our communications, while respecting the language, needs and preferences of users. 

2. By 2030, our approach to BSL communications will be based on increasingly comprehensive audience insights from the BSL community. It will go above and beyond the cross-government guidance that is already available. 

3. We will be continually improving the quality of our engagement with the BSL community. Drawing from the EAST behavioural science framework, we will ensure that our communications are easy and attractive to engage with, socially relevant to the BSL community, and timely.

4. We will have a clear process for identifying upcoming communications moments that are likely to be particularly applicable to BSL users. Our process for procuring translation services will be clear to all relevant staff members. 

5. We will have governance structures and feedback mechanisms in place to ensure this is evaluated with input from BSL users. 

Context

In January 2025, DSIT was named the digital centre of government. The Government Digital Service (GDS), Centre Digital and Data Office (CDO) and Incubator for AI (i.AI) were movedd from the Cabinet Office to unite efforts in the digital transformation of public services. This expanded remit offers exciting opportunities to build upon our work to date increasing the use of BSL in our communications. 

Since the creation of DSIT in 2023, we have made progress in delivering meaningful, targeted and accessible content for BSL users. 

In the 2023 to 2024 reporting year, our activity included DSIT celebrating National BSL Day by organising a visit from our Ministerial Disability Champion to Waterloo Station in London to see how new digital screens are using AI to translate live journey information into BSL. 

In the 2024 to 2025 reporting year, we created BSL translations for the Digital Inclusion Action Plan and the associated call for evidence, which were embedded on GOV.UK. It was the first time DSIT created policy documents translated into BSL. The Digital Inclusion Action Plan sets out actions the government will take to ensure everyone has the access, skills, support and confidence to engage in our modern digital society and economy, whatever their circumstances. Given disabled people are one of the groups in the UK most likely to be digitally excluded, the Deaf community was a significant audience. 

To help us go further in using BSL, we have been exploring the main barriers faced by communications professionals in DSIT. Our engagement exercise has shown the jointly most-cited reasons for not using BSL were: 

• understanding which DSIT policy areas are most relevant to BSL users 
• understanding how to procure BSL translations 

The second-most cited reason for not using BSL was: 

• managing translation time requirements, given the often short period between document finalisation and publication 

Our strategy, as detailed below, will address these barriers and other challenges.  

Strategy 

Informed by our organisational context, our strategic approach to improving our BSL communications activity has 3 broad areas: 

• people
• procurement
• planning 

People

The people element to our strategy concentrates on the skills and knowledge required within the communications team to provide improved BSL communications. 

Communications staff should receive training in when and how BSL should be used so they can:

• confidently make decisions on the inclusion of BSL in communication plans
• identify gaps where the Deaf community are not currently able to adequately access information

Over the next 5 years, DSIT will organise Deaf awareness training available for all members of communications staff. This builds on a smaller number of staff taking part in awareness training in 2024. 

To help ensure BSL is further embedded into our organisational culture, we will provide more specialist training to ‘Accessibility Champions’ drawn from each communications team – media, digital, strategic communications, external affairs, visits, internal communications, and campaigns. The Champions will help ensure every team has a member of staff with expertise in BSL. This will increase our collective skill level and ensure all members of staff are aware of their obligations under the BSL Act 2022. The Champions will also provide a network for evaluating the impact of our Delivery Plan (outlined in the ‘Governance and monitoring’ section). 

We will also go further to gather direct feedback on our work from BSL users and the wider Deaf community. We have an accessibility lead within the communications team who will, alongside our external affairs team, explore the most effective means of directly engaging BSL users and the wider Deaf community to gain their feedback on the quality and overall effectiveness of our communications activity. This will be done with a view to creating permanent, meaningful relationships with this community – not one-off or transactional. The starting point will be forging closer links with the Cabinet Office’s Disability Unit and its BSL Advisory Board, and then external stakeholders. The BSL Advisory Board is made up of people who use BSL and was created to give advice to the government on issues important to BSL users and advise on the implementation of the BSL Act. 

Procurement

The procurement element of our strategy concentrates on how BSL translation services are paid for and the ways in which understanding of this will be improved. 

There is a need for simple guidance on how to procure BSL translations, tailored for DSIT communications professionals. This will include guidance on:

• the specific steps involved, including the internal approvals required and the approximate costings
• timeframes that can be expected for differing types of BSL activity – for example, live translations at press conferences, one-minute social media video translations, and the translation of executive summaries of policy documents

Part of this exercise will be developing an understanding of where the greatest value for money can be gained from different types of BSL activity. This will involve drawing on case studies and evaluations from other departments. We will use this information to further tailor how we take forward this Improvement Plan. Through this work we will ensure that we are working as one government, sharing insights across departments and using our convening power to ensure value for money and avoid duplication.

Planning

The planning element of our strategy covers how BSL can be embedded in our forward planning processes. 

The DSIT communications team has well-established processes in place to ascertain and organise upcoming communications moments across the department. These include monthly commissions to policy teams to provide information which is then assessed and incorporated into strategic communications plans. These processes will be improved by including prompts for all relevant teams to consider the relevance of their upcoming moments for disabled and impaired audiences, including BSL users. 

In this way, the communications team will improve its understanding of where BSL can be best used. This will build on the recent example of translating parts of our Digital Inclusion Action Plan into BSL.   

This will also prompt discussion of which documents would most benefit from BSL interpretation. This will help build in the time required for BSL translation between documents being finalised and published. It will also help ensure that documents are drafted with BSL and the Deaf community in mind – for example, using clear, easy-to-understand language given average reading ages in the Deaf community tend to be lower. This is of particular relevance to DSIT given our department frequently works on science, innovation and technology issues that tend to have complex terminology. 

Aligned with DSIT’s role, we will also use our forward planning processes to:

• identify research and development projects that will benefit the Deaf community – we will proactively seek out stories that we can communicate to BSL users and the wider Deaf community regarding the progress being made in these areas
• seek new ways of using BSL in public-facing communications and look to showcase and offer a voice to what important stakeholders are doing in this space too – our ministerial visit to Waterloo Station to see ground-breaking AI offering BSL signage to travellers was an example of how DSIT can link science and technology to BSL users

In addition, the DSIT internal communications team will work to identify how BSL could be incorporated into all staff events and across other internal channels, including our intranet. We are aware of 4 employees with hearing impairments in DSIT, but this number is likely to be higher due to limited disclosure. We will seek to work with the internal staff Ability and Neurodiversity Network, to identify staff willing to advise and help shape inclusive internal communications, as well as the wider delivery of our plan. In April 2024, a staff member who is Deaf provided BSL interpretation in a video for DSIT’s internal website, which received positive feedback. Increasing inclusive internal communications activity will also have the added benefit of reminding DSIT staff to consider incorporating BSL in public-facing communications.

Delivery plan

The table below sets out the main actions and the timeframe for completing them. 

Action	Theme
Organise deaf awareness training available to all communications staff by March 2026. Repeat every 2 years, aiming for 100% of staff to have attended a session by 2030.	People
Assign one Accessibility Champion per communications team (7 total), by June 2026. Ensure all champions have completed specialised BSL in communications training by December 2026.	People
Meet with the Cabinet Office BSL Advisory Board by December 2025, to gain community feedback on this plan and establish understanding and processes around engaging the Board around priority projects. By June 2026, engage with external community groups on our use of BSL in communications.	People
By December 2025, publish tailored guidance on BSL procurement for DSIT comms, including advice on interventions that have the greatest value for money. Update annually and include consideration of advances in AI and new tools.	Procurement
By December 2025, establish a list of research and development projects that will benefit BSL users with a view to developing targeted communications to increase awareness of these projects among the Deaf community through 2026 BSL Awareness Days, and ongoing.	Planning
Throughout 2025, develop relationships and contacts within DSIT’s arms-length bodies and other significant stakeholders who are working to support BSL users through their communications. From 2026-27, showcase our arm’s-length bodies’ work and encourage wider consideration of BSL in communications through including them in annual reporting.	Planning
By August 2025, update our forward-planning process to systematically consider the relevance of communications moments to disabled audiences	Planning
Explore how BSL could be incorporated into events for internal staff and internal websites where appropriate.	Planning

Governance and monitoring

Delivering this Improvement Plan is coordinated by the strategic communications team in DSIT. The Director of Communications is the senior responsible owner. 

DSIT will continue to fulfil its statutory obligations under the BSL Act 2022 by providing an annual report on the BSL outputs it has delivered. 

Underpinning these outputs are the actions outlined in the delivery plan. The new network of Accessibility Champions will meet at least every 3 months to review progress against the delivery plan. 

As outlined above, engaging with a network of BSL users to assess the quality and effectiveness of DSIT communications will be a significant part of this Improvement Plan. The frequency of this engagement will be established in collaboration with these new networks.