Commentary on provisions of Act Chapter 2: Duties relating to the promotion and facilitation of British Sign Language Section 2: Duty of Secretary of State to report on British Sign Language
Subsections (1) and (2) provide a specific duty on the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a "British Sign Language report". This is a report describing what each ministerial department (listed in the Schedule to the Act) has done to promote and facilitate the use of British Sign Language in their public communications.
	Subsections (3) and (4) detail the types of communication that should be collected and reported on. The report is not intended to include detail about individual requests for British Sign Language interpretation services in front-facing operational delivery as a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010, for example in health or education settings, ports, police stations, courts, Jobcentres, workplaces etc.
	The report would not include any personal communications with individuals that may have been translated into British Sign Language (e.g. ministerial letters to individuals, Freedom of Information requests, ‘Treat Official’ correspondence or meetings with ministers or officials where there has been a request for a British Sign Language translator).
	It is not intended that the information included in the report would be highly detailed (for example, the percentage of the total types of communication created). But it might, for example, set out how many press conferences held by ministerial departments listed at Schedule 1 had BSL interpretation.
	Subsection (5) provides that the Secretary of State must not include in the report information about communications that relate only to Scotland and do not relate to reserved matters; and must not include in the report information about communications that relate only to Wales and do not relate to reserved matters.
	Subsection (6) requires the Secretary of State to publish the report no more than three months after each reporting period ends.
	Subsection (7) defines when the first report should be published and at what intervals thereafter. In practice, the information required from ministerial departments will be requested on an annual basis to help inform reporting purposes and show changes over time. This approach allows ministerial departments the opportunity to build on good practice, share knowledge and increase the provision of British Sign Language interpretation where statistical returns suggest it is necessary to do so.
	The information will be collated by the Cabinet Office Disability Unit and published at least every three years. The reports will be made available in BSL and published on GOV.UK. It is possible that the collated reports will be published more frequently to align with UK disability reporting.
	Subsection (8) defines what is meant by a ‘relevant government department’. It is one of the ministerial government departments listed in the Schedule to the Act. Subsection (9) gives the Secretary of State power to amend this list by regulations. This power is intended to only be used where there are ‘machinery of government' changes that may merge government departments or if, for example, a specific part of a ministerial department's portfolio were decoupled from its current department and formed a new ministerial department in its own right.