1. To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what consideration it gives to inclusive communication, and what improvements it can make to parliamentary broadcasts in this regard. (S50-02238)

The corporate body is committed to making its communications as accessible as possible and it regularly looks at a range of technology to make improvements to parliamentary broadcasts.

Currently, we use YouTube technology, with which we caption a number of video archives using the text from the

Official Report

. That began in September 2013 with First Minister’s questions. The service was then extended to include general questions and Ministerial Statements from September 2014, and topical and portfolio questions were added in November 2016. Those videos can be viewed on YouTube the following day with the text added. Where there is a particular demand, we also provide that facility for chamber debates. We also caption all short video packages and video clips for social media channels.

Where possible, we provide simultaneous interpretation of parliamentary business into British Sign Language and other languages on request. The corporate body also provides a range of information resources such as British Sign Language videos.

Will the corporate body consider subtitling all debates in the chamber? I appreciate that it provides subtitles and sign language interpretation on some specific debates, but it feels really important, when it is doing such a good job in providing an inclusive service in all other areas, that we make our debates and questions accessible to all people.

The Parliament has been considering that, which is why it started in September 2013 with the captioning.

In 2013, the corporate body undertook a feasibility study of providing subtitles across all in-house distribution, including live streaming. Following a consultant’s report, the option of re-speaking—that is, somebody listening to what is being said and re-speaking it into a computer with voice recognition for their voice—was identified as providing the greatest accuracy, at about 90 per cent. Costs for that system, which requires technical infrastructure and additional staff, were however considered prohibitive.

When the corporate body stands up in the chamber and says that we are keeping things under review, we genuinely are doing so. One of the corporate body’s contractors—a company called Groovy Gecko—has recently carried out a pilot with the United Kingdom Parliament to look at simultaneous voice recognition, and that system was only 60 to 70 per cent accurate. I am sure that all members agree that services that communicate what is said in Parliament must avoid errors, and particularly embarrassing errors. Often, to get the required level of accuracy requires a lot of manual input, and to date those costs are deemed to be prohibitive.

However, as I said at the beginning, we continue to look at the area. Technology is evolving very quickly, and we would love to be able to provide more subtitling across all parliamentary output as soon as the technology and costs allow it.