[Escapee]

The Welsh Assembly (I refuse to refer to them as a Gov*****nt) and some Welsh local authorities have been doing this unofficially for a while. My wife works in social services, she has done a mixture of permanent and contract work over the past few years in England and Wales, and a contract working directly for the Welsh Assembly.

She was told by one large local authority whom she had worked for previously that, it was expected of her to speak or learn Welsh, and they offered her to attend an evening class. She refused, she pointed out that she already spoke five or six languages, most of them fluently. She also pointed out that where she was born English and Afrikaans was taught in school, and tribal/local languages were taught at home.

She also pointed out that as she had previous experience of the department and the job role, she was well aware that learning Welsh was a waste and that one of the Indian/Pakstani languages or east European would be more beneficial to the job role. They still employed her, it's all about supply and demand, she would have just taken a contract elsewhere.

Social services in Wales are crying out for qualified people, so I can't see them terminating anyone's contract because they accept the job and then refuse to learn Welsh, or not employ them because they refuse to learn it. They can't afford to take that approach, If they do, they will be in more of a mess than they are now.