Booking and Paying for BSL/English Interpreters and STTR Captions

Booking communication support 

Currently, it is most common for Deaf BSL users to arrange communication support, even when the people needing support are often non-deaf people who do not use BSL. This represents an inequitable division of labour, also known as the Deaf, Deafblind and Hard of Hearing Tax. We kindly ask all staff to be more proactive with ensuring BSL-friendly spaces across the University. Information about the process for booking BSL interpreters is available here.  

Paying for communication support 

The responsibility for paying for interpreters and captions depends on whether the Deaf or Deafblind people are staff, students, or external visitors, and whether the event is compulsory for staff to attend or not.  

Deaf and Deafblind Staff 

Deaf and Deafblind staff each have individual arrangements for their own BSL/English interpreting and/or STTR needs. There are currently seven Deaf staff employed at UoE who use BSL at work. Each staff member has their own individual Access to Work (AtW) budget assigned by the UK Department of Work and Pensions. This budget is capped for each person and is used at the staff members’ discretion, as it is a finite, valuable and hard-earned resource.  

Most Deaf or Deafblind staff members book their own access services, e.g., freelance BSL/English interpreters, with assistance from their respective Schools for support with financial and admin aspects, especially AtW paperwork.  

Staff with AtW budgets are legally required to exercise complete control in choosing what they spend their budget on, and they are also personally responsible for ensuring their AtW budget is not exceeded. The issue is that AtW annual budgets are finite: when an AtW budget runs out, there is nothing more until the next annual renewal is complete, a process which takes several months and is available only once a year. Exceeding an AtW budget can therefore severely and negatively impact on Deaf and Deafblind staff access requirements for the remainder of the year. 

Meetings and events which are compulsory for all staff to attend should therefore be funded from elsewhere, such as within the staff’s School allocations. Other non-obligatory events, such as conferences and training events, can be paid for with AtW funding, only if the staff member freely chooses to attend.  

Hearing Staff 

It is against the law to ask Deaf or Deafblind staff for use of their ATW funding: the Deaf staff member must willingly be ready to attend the work-related event and wish to use their AtW funding to cover their access costs.  

For example, if a meeting or training is obligatory, or the Deaf staff member does not wish to attend, then it is illegal for the department or School to request that a staff members’ AtW budget cover this cost. 

Non-deaf staff, such as hearing academics wanting to organise BSL/English interpreted events, need to source access support funding from elsewhere, such as within their School allocations. 

Students 

All undergraduate student interpreting and access needs are dealt with by the DLSS: https://disability-learning-support-service.ed.ac.uk/ Postgraduate students may be supported by DLSS if they have the appropriate funding. If not, they need to be supported by their relevant School.  

External Visitors 

External visitors are typically people who are invited to visit or who have asked to visit the University. If people are invited to visit, such as External Examiners, then it is the hosts’ duty to be informed of their needs and make all efforts to support them accordingly, such as by sourcing access support funding from within their School allocations. Sometimes people ask to visit, in which case they are expected to secure their own funding for disability support, even though the fairness of this is questionable. 

Payment of Communication Support Invoices 

Invoice are sent to the School Finance department, who then liaises with Central Finance for Purchase Order numbers and payments. The School Finance department also takes care of claiming reimbursement for invoices from AtW. MHSES and PPLS are two schools with well-established administrative systems for dealing with AtW.  

AUTHOR Dr Gabrielle Hodge, Chair of BSL Implementation Group 

DATE December 2025