Monmouthshire County Council Welsh language standards monitoring report has been considered by its performance scrutiny committee which has looked at ways of increasing the number of Welsh speakers working at the authority.

Previous efforts to increase the number of Welsh speaking applicants included advertising Welsh language essential posts, as well as some select Welsh language desirable posts, on Welsh language recruitment sites . 

Performance scrutiny committee chairman, Conservative Alistair Neill, asked if the council was aware whether advertising post as Welsh language “desirable” could discourage applicants from neighbouring counties in England.  

There are 176 standards applying to how the council uses Welsh intended to ensure it treats the language no less favourably than English. 

The report also states the council amended its street naming policy during the past year, following a complaint to and investigation by the Welsh Language Commissioner, after it stopped issuing bilingual name plates in 2021 for streets that previously had a name in just one language. 

The equalities report recognises people being able to fully access council services using Welsh as an aim and it has sought to recruit more Welsh speaking staff. 

It stated the council had approximately 649 vacancies in 2023/24, the period the report covered, and of those 24 were described as Welsh Essential (3.70 per cent) and 625 Welsh Desirable (96.3 per cent).