Corporate report

Companies House Welsh language monitoring report 2024 to 2025

Published 28 October 2025

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 2024 to 31 March 2025.

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 Digital and Technology who acts as chair.

2. Achievements

We continue to introduce new powers and changes under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (2023). The act gives Companies House the power to play a more significant role in tackling economic crime and supporting economic growth. Over time, the measures will lead to improved transparency and more accurate and trusted information on our registers. The act introduced the biggest changes to Companies House since corporate registrations were established in 1844.

This has required changes to our forms, guidance, letters and online systems. These changes have all also been done in the Welsh. We have also had to create completely new forms, letters, services as a result of our new powers.

3. Compliance with the Welsh Language Scheme

Companies House remains committed to complying with its Welsh Language Scheme. From 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we achieved the following.

Our Welsh language committee met bimonthly to ensure adherence to the Companies House Welsh Language Scheme and review progress against the action plan. Welsh service meetings were also held to consider the services offered to Welsh speaking customers.

A team of Welsh speakers from various areas within Companies House continued to respond to customer enquiries. During the reporting period, 6 customers asked to speak in Welsh and we received 21 emails in Welsh through the general enquiries email. 

In this reporting period, 15 Welsh speaking customers contacted our Welsh Language Unit directly with general queries, including:

• advice on how to file accounts bilingually
• advice on how to remove an address when a company has used their address without their permission
• late filing penalty enquiry
• advice on how to change a company address

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.

We continued to review Companies House guidance to ensure that all guidance created by Companies House 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 Companies House in Welsh received a response in Welsh. All departments in Companies House 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 to ensure that the service we provide is of equal quality to the English. The Welsh Language Unit has also provided advice and guidance to Operational leaders on upskilling of Welsh speakers.

We have recruited more Welsh speakers to ensure there are people on hand with the necessary knowledge to deal with any Welsh filings that come in.

Each set of Welsh language accounts received from Welsh companies were translated into English for the public record, as required by law. These accounts are now translated by an external provider to ensure that the accounts are available on the public record in an efficient and timely manner. We also introduced an annotation to our process to ensure that credit reference agencies are aware that the accounts that appear on the public record are awaiting a translation.

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

All contracts issued included a clause ensuring that our service partners comply with Companies House Welsh language commitments.

Companies House continued to participate in the UK Government interdepartmental 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 Welsh Language Unit at Companies House.

4. Mainstreaming the Welsh Language

4.1 Campaign site

We have a fully bilingual website to promote changes related to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act. The Welsh language site has had over 2,000 views. Over the past year we’ve updated it with more detailed information about the changes. For example, information about identity verification and Authorised Corporate Service Providers (ACSPs).

4.2 Social media

X

In September 2024, we changed our approach to X (formerly Twitter). We now only use it as a responsive customer service and monitoring tool, rather than proactively broadcasting messages.

We post English and Welsh morning messages on X to encourage users to contact us if they have a question. We’ve posted 24 Welsh language morning messages. These have been seen more than 9,300 times and have had 9 engagements.

Facebook

From 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we posted 16 times on Facebook in the Welsh language. These posts:

• promoted the Newidiadau i gyfraith cwmniau’r DU website
• supported users to meet their responsibilities to Companies House, such as filing annual accounts and filing confirmation statements

Our Welsh language posts on Facebook have been seen more than 9,000 times.

YouTube

We added 6 videos to our Cymraeg playlist on YouTube. The playlist includes videos such as:

• What is Companies House?
• File your accounts on time to avoid late filing penalties
• Registrar’s objectives

From 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, the Welsh playlist had 764 views and a watch time of 6.4 hours.

We’re continuing to work on our YouTube strategy. This includes trialling new functions like ‘YouTube shorts’ and considering how to use other new functionality to optimise our Welsh content.

4.3 Campaigns

During summer 2024, we ran our ‘director’s responsibilities’ campaign. This campaign encouraged company directors to meet their responsibilities to Companies House. We published:

• 5 Welsh posts on X which received over 1,800 impressions
• 6 Welsh posts on Facebook which had over 5,500 impressions

We’re working on Welsh language posts for our ACSP campaign in summer 2025 and our voluntary identity verification campaign.

4.4 Careers hub

During 2024 to 2025 we continued to develop our careers hub website aimed at people who might apply for Companies House roles. The site is fully bilingual.

We added new pages on how to use AI correctly when applying for jobs and preparing for interviews. We also shared guidance on applying for roles under the Disability Confidence Scheme.

The careers hub continues to perform well, with an average of 944 unique visitors each month during last financial year. We will continue to develop and add new bilingual content to the careers hub during the next financial year.

4.5 Email to all registered email addresses

We’ve been collecting registered email addresses for all companies since March 2024. In March and April 2025, we sent the first email to all registered email addresses. We sent a bilingual email to 1,815 companies with a Welsh name ending (for example, ‘Cyfyngedig’).

4.6 News stories

From 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we published 3 of 7 total news stories in bilingually in Welsh and English:

• Companies House makes progress on implementing reforms
• Companies House to join GOV.UK One Login
• The online accounts and Company Tax Return service is closing

Together, these stories received 25 unique page views.

4.7 GOV.UK guidance

From 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, we published 7 new guidance pages bilingually in Welsh and English:

• Apply to file with Companies House using software
• How to meet Companies House identity verification standard
• Being an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP)
• Applying to register as a Companies House authorised agent
• Verifying your identity for Companies House
• When you need to verify your identity for Companies House
• Tell Companies House you have verified someone’s identity

These pages relate to new requirements for identity verification and registering as an Authorised Corporate Service Provider (ACSP).

In total, these pages have had 158 unique page views.

We also created a Welsh language identity verification ‘collection page’ with links to the new guidance pages. 

4.8 Software presenter account journey

We published a Welsh version of our software presenter account journey. This is the first end to end bilingual journey on our Find and update company information service.

5. Performance indicators

In the reporting period, there were 6,210 Welsh jurisdiction companies and 19 Welsh jurisdiction limited liability partnerships (LLPs) incorporated.

By the end of the reporting period, there were 35,262 Welsh jurisdiction companies and 1566 Welsh jurisdiction LLPs on the register.

By the end of the reporting period, there were 1,961 Welsh companies incorporated with a Welsh name ending on the register.

5.1 Companies House contact centre

We now have 4 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. During this reporting period, 6 calls were received in Welsh and 21 emails in Welsh.

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

The Welsh Language Unit also holds regular meetings with Welsh speakers at the contact centre to make sure that they can use and practice their Welsh as the percentage of Welsh calls at present is low. 

We realise that our current offering of a customer having to ask for a Welsh service isn’t ideal and our Welsh Language Unit Manager is working with the contact centre and the lead liaison between Companies House and the contact centre to see how we can improve this going forward.

5.2 Language training and awareness

Companies House has continued to promote Welsh language development opportunities for our staff and offer opportunities for the staff to use their Welsh at the workplace.

The Welsh Language Unit hold a Caffi Cymraeg in the building each month to give staff an opportunity to use and practice their Welsh at work. There are fluent Welsh speakers attending but also Welsh learners from various areas of Companies House. The Welsh Language Unit also provide online support sessions for the staff currently learning Welsh at Companies House.

The Welsh language Unit also puts regular articles and Welsh language vocabulary on the Companies Interact page. This has raised awareness and ensured the Welsh language has visibility across the whole of Companies House. The Welsh Language Unit also has a permanent page on Interact (our internal intranet site) 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 has 99 members; we continue to provide Welsh content and advertise our events on here. We also have a specific Teams channel to promote our Welsh language events.

Companies House 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.

We now have 2 cohorts learning Welsh through Learn Welsh Glamorgan at Companies House. Seventeen people are currently studying Entry level and Intermediate level through Teams.

Companies House 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.

Companies House also supports outreach activities and are currently working with Ysgol Gyfun Glantaf as part of this.

Companies House was also part of the ‘UK Government Welsh services’ stand at the Urdd National Eisteddfod in Pontypridd. The Welsh Language Unit created a rota to give the Welsh speakers and learners at Companies House the experience of being at the Eisteddfod, some for the first time.

6. Complaints

The number of complaints received about the lack of Welsh language service provision and the steps put in place to resolve these complaints.

During this reporting period there was 1 instance in which a customer contacted Companies House relating to its Welsh language service. Please see a summary of the complaints below.

One customer emailed our Welsh Language Unit stating that they didn’t receive a Welsh phone call when requested or a call back. The Welsh Language Unit arranged a meeting with the contact centre liaison lead to ensure that the process was correctly followed and a full review was carried out as a result of this. 

The Welsh Language Unit continue to monitor this service by doing regular spot checks on the contact centre. The contact centre also recruited more Welsh speakers as a result and ensured that a rota was in place so that there should always be a Welsh speaker available. The Welsh Language Unit contacted the customer immediately to explain the situation and to ensure that they could communicate in their language of choice.

7. Conclusion

Our Welsh Language Unit and the Welsh Committee will continue to ensure that all areas of Companies House are aware of the organisational 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 Companies House to Champion bilingualism across the organisation..

8. Companies House action plan

8.1 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 bimonthly in 2024 to 2025.
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. A Welsh Language Impact Assessment is now included as part of Project Managers Gate reviews.

8.2 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	2 cohorts of Welsh lessons are currently running and the Welsh Language Unit continue to promote the Work Welsh modules throughout the organisation.
Ensure Welsh speaking staff are present in all major operational areas to provide cover for Welsh speaking customers	Ongoing	Directors	Companies House ensures Welsh speaking staff are available in all areas to examine Welsh filings or respond to Welsh customers. We have recruited more Welsh speakers in the accounts area of the business to ensure that anybody submitting their accounts in Welsh receive an equal service to the English as we have staff on hand to examine and process these accounts.
Internally promote Companies House’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 Companies House 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.

8.3 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 Companies House presence in Wales	Ongoing	Events team	No events have taken place during this time period.
Ensure Welsh literature is available at events held in Wales	Ongoing	Events team	No events have taken place during this time period.
Ensure adverts and press releases are available in Welsh, when published in Wales	Ongoing	Human Resources/ICT	Now that Civil Service Jobs is available in Welsh, we have started by advertising in Welsh for our operational officer role. We plan to build on this going forward.

8.4 Publications and forms

Action required	Target date	Action owner	Progress to date/notes
Ensure Companies House Welsh publications are updated in parallel with English versions	Ongoing	Strategy, Policy, Comms and Welsh Language Unit	Companies House 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, Policy, Comms and Welsh Language Unit	Companies House 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	Companies House 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.

8.5 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 X and Facebook posts are posted on a weekly 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.

8.6 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	No face to face meetings happen anymore but we can offer this service over Microsoft Teams.

8.7 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 make sure that the customer can communicate with us in their language of choice. The Welsh language Unit hold regular meetings with the contact centre and all the departments to make sure that this system is effective.

8.8 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.

8.9 Complaints

Action required	Target date	Action owner	Progress to date/notes
To ensure complaints about Companies House’s Welsh Language service are fully investigated and dealt with promptly, in line with the Companies House normal complaints procedure	Ongoing	Welsh Language Unit/Policy	Complaints section of the report.
Monitor complaints regarding bilingual service	Ongoing	Welsh Language Unit/Policy	The Welsh Language Unit monitors all complaints regarding the bilingual service as per the complaints section of the report.