Bilbao forges on with ‘easy reading’ transformation

The initiative aims to make municipal communication more accessible to residents

The municipal website of Bilbao informed on 8 July that the local City Council is currently immersed in drawing up the II Easy Reading and Accessible Service Plan. The strategy in this area focuses on consolidating the culture of easy reading at the municipal level and progressively evolving towards accessible care that takes more into account the different needs and expectations of users.

Expanding on the idea of accessibility to include non-tangible aspects

The specific objectives of the Plan are focused on citizens and aimed at ensuring that they feel highly satisfied with respect to the understandability of municipal information and documentation. That also goes with regard to the level of accessibility of municipal services.

In addition, this Second Plan also takes up the challenge that by 2023, the Bilbao City Council will offer 70% of the documents, having a direct impact on citizens, in an easy-to-read format. It also seeks to guarantee that citizen-attention spaces will be certified according to the accessibility standard UNE 170001.

The guiding principles of the Plan are the right of access to information, equal opportunities, non-discrimination and social inclusion, universal accessibility and municipal transparency. All of them are aligned with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and more specifically with SDG 10: Reduction of inequalities.

What has been achieved by the I Easy Reading Plan?

Since we are talking about the second edition of the Easy Reading and Accessibility Plan, this is a good moment to mention what the effects of its first version have been.

To date, 381 documents were drawn up in Easy Reading format. This includes requests, service letters, brochures, call bases, regulations and ordinances, among others.

The City Council has also made progress in terms of staff training. Since 2017, 164 municipal workers have been trained in Easy Reading tools; 412 employees, in attention to functional diversity and finally, 13 people, in the field of universal accessibility.

The I Easy Reading Plan of the Bilbao City Council was also recognized as excellent practice in 2017 by FEMP (the Spanish Municipal Federation) and the Institute of Easy Reading (a non-profit working on improving cognitive accessibility in the country).