To ask the First Minister and deputy First Minister to outline what steps they are taking to ensure their Department’s communication on social media is accessible to everyone.

Mrs Little-Pengelly (The deputy First Minister)

The Executive Office is committed to ensuring that the information and services that it provides are fully accessible to all parts of the community. That includes its communication on social media. The Executive information service (EIS) has provided accessibility training for its communications staff to enable them to understand the specific challenges of some users and the communication formats that are best suited to those users' needs. In addition, EIS has established a social media working group, a key objective of which is to share expertise, best practice and learning on accessibility. The practical steps that have been taken to support the accessibility of social media content across all platforms include: using alt text and descriptive captions for all images; adding subtitles to every video published on the Department’s social media platforms; ensuring that low contrast images are not used; using clear language on posts; and including only links that make it clear where the user is being directed to.

Mrs Little-Pengelly

Indeed. That is why the Department has led the way in doing that and has done so for a considerable time. We try to focus on the accessibility aspect of all our social media posts. As I indicated, that includes that, where we use videos, we try to subtitle them. We also make things as clear as possible and use the plainest language possible.

Ms Flynn

Will the deputy First Minister further detail how the Executive Office ensures equality of opportunity for all?

Mrs Little-Pengelly

I thank the Member for her question. The Member is aware that the Department is under the equality duty set out in section 75, as all Departments and public bodies are. We take that duty seriously. It is important to us that we are able to communicate our strategies and other information, including on the things that we do day in, day out, to the maximum number of people in the clearest possible way. That is why training of our comms people has taken place to ensure that they are fully aware of the range of tools that they have by which to make that communication clearer and fulfil our equality obligations.

Ms Forsythe

How important does the deputy First Minister think that the role of social media was in recent communications about storm Éowyn?

Mrs Little-Pengelly

I thank the Member for her question. We are all aware that the way in which we communicate has changed. It is no longer through just radio, TV programmes and news channels; a huge number of people now get their information from social media. People choose more and more to get their news and information from those sources. It is therefore incredibly important that we maximise the use of those sources. That is what I endeavoured to do during the storm. Everyone in the Chamber will be conscious that we do not have social media managers in our capacity as MLAs but rather that we do an awful lot of that ourselves, on top of all the other activities that we participate in. I have no doubt that all of us, individually, could get better at that, and I think that we are trying to improve. However, an important part of our job is to communicate on a regular basis, and that was exactly what I endeavoured to do during the storm in order to get that communication out.