Welsh Language StandardsHousing association apps
What it takes for a housing association app to function fully in Welsh
Watch the briefing
A ten-minute video on seven questions to ask about a tenant app, each one shown broken and then fixed in a fictional app.
- Seven questions for housing associations and their software suppliers PDF, 2 pages, English only
- Welsh or English? Keeping the app and your letters in step PDF, 1 page, English only
A briefing for housing associations in Wales. It sets out five points that matter when a housing association app has to function fully in Welsh, and the questions each one raises for software suppliers.
Why now
- Cymraeg 2050
- The Welsh Government’s Cymraeg 2050 strategy aims for a million Welsh speakers by 2050, and to increase the percentage who speak Welsh daily, and can say more than a few words, from 10 per cent (2013-15) to 20 per cent by 2050.
- The Standards
- The Welsh Language Standards are set by regulations made under the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011. A body has to meet them once a compliance notice is in force, and the Welsh Language Commissioner enforces them.
- Housing associations
- Housing associations are next. The Welsh Language Standards (No. 10) Regulations 2026 set Standards for them, and the Welsh Language Commissioner decides which ones apply to each association, and by when, in a compliance notice. By 23 October 2026, we had found no public record of an association receiving a final compliance notice. After the consultation, the standards for websites and online services were amended to refer explicitly to portals, including app-based tenant portals.
- Costs
- In their own consultation responses, housing associations named IT upgrades among the costs they expect.
Async Digital builds apps bilingual in English and Welsh from the first build. Read Async Digital’s own Welsh-language commitments.
This is a briefing, not legal advice. Which standards apply to an association, and by when, is for the Welsh Language Commissioner’s compliance notice.
Point 1 of 5
‘Fully’ means fully
Once a compliance notice imposes standard 45 of the No. 10 Standards on an association, the standard requires the apps the association publishes to function fully in Welsh, with Welsh treated no less favourably than English. In our reading, that is likely to reach beyond the parts that ship with the app, to the messages and data the association’s own systems show a tenant in it.
Considerations
- 1.1The screens, the messages and the data from the association’s own systems are all likely to be in scope, not just the menus. Text from someone else, such as a comment written by a tenant, need not be translated, but an existing Welsh version produced under the Standards or a Welsh language scheme must be used.
- 1.2An app that is translated but still shows English repair updates is unlikely to function fully in Welsh.
Point 2 of 5
An iPhone will not ask for Welsh by itself
The iPhone’s own menus are not available in Welsh. A tenant can add Cymraeg as a preferred language in Settings, and an app that includes Welsh then opens in Welsh. A tenant who has not added it will not see Welsh unless the app offers it. Once an association’s compliance notice applies the app standard, the app has to offer that choice itself: the Welsh Language Commissioner has found an app in breach for relying on the phone’s language setting (case CS1161, 2024).
Considerations
- 2.1The law, once it applies, needs an in-app way to choose Welsh. Good practice goes further: a Welsh/English switch that is always visible and is remembered (the Welsh Government’s bilingual technology toolkit, sections 4.1, 4.3, 4.4 and 4.7, which is guidance, not law).
- 2.2If the phone already lists Cymraeg, the app should open in Welsh without asking (toolkit, section 4.1).
- 2.3The choice should last between sessions (toolkit, sections 4.6 and 4.7).
- 2.4It has to reach the server too. See point 4.
Point 3 of 5
Most of what housing association tenants read is not in the app
Repair updates, rent statements and appointment slots come from the housing system’s server. Translating the app’s screens does not translate them.
Considerations
- 3.1Which records the housing system can hold in two languages.
- 3.2Who writes the Welsh for data that changes daily.
- 3.3What the tenant sees when a Welsh version is missing.
Point 4 of 5
Messages are written by the server
Notifications, emails and texts are composed by the housing system. Once a compliance notice imposes the relevant standards, the No. 10 Standards ask that a tenant who has asked for Welsh receives it from then on (standard 2), and that a tenant whose preference is not known receives a Welsh version too (standard 5). So the system has to be able to record each tenant’s language, use it for every message, and send a Welsh version, not English alone, when it holds no record.
Considerations
- 4.1Where the preference is stored, and who can change it.
- 4.2One preference should drive the app, the push notifications, the emails and the texts alike. The Welsh Language Commissioner’s technology guidance, which is not statutory, says the preference “should also be recorded and used to determine the language for any communications”.
- 4.3What happens to tenants already on the system.
Point 5 of 5
Welsh grammar trips up code written for English
Welsh has six plural forms to English’s two. Mutations change the start of words: ‘Caerdydd’ becomes ‘yng Nghaerdydd’, ‘in Cardiff’. A simple search for ‘Caerdydd’ will not find it.
Considerations
- 5.1Counts such as ‘3 repairs’ need proper plural handling, not ‘repair(s)’.
- 5.2Search should find a word in its mutated forms.
- 5.3Sorted lists should follow Welsh alphabetical order, where ‘ch’, ‘dd’ and ‘ll’ are single letters (good practice in the bilingual technology toolkit, sections 3.4 to 3.6).
Who does what
- Async Digital builds
- The bilingual engineering: the language choice, bilingual data and search, the per-tenant preference, and plurals.
- The housing association owns
- The Welsh wording, written by its own translators or its translation supplier.
A free 20-minute briefing
Rob Nash offers a free 20-minute briefing for housing associations in Wales on what this means in practice, so they can ask the right questions of their software suppliers.
For a closer look, we also offer a fixed-price review of a published tenant app against these questions, with written findings. Ask, and we will send the terms and the price.
or email r.nash1@async-digital.com
Rob Nash, director of Async Digital Ltd, a lead software developer in Cardiff with fifteen years shipping native apps.