A Demonstration of Solidarity

A belated update on the demonstrations by spoken language interpreters:

I attended the demo in my lunch hour on 15th March. As far as I know I was the only sign language interpreter who attended the London demo and there was one other interpreter in attendance at the demo in Manchester.

There are more sign language interpreters in support of terminating the MoJ’s disastrous framework agreement but who couldn’t attend.

Nevertheless at the demo I witnessed great solidarity, a sense of community, a clarity of direction. All of which I have, sadly, not witnessed for some time with sign language interpreters in the UK.

I take my hat off to the interpreters who have stuck together and I sincerely hope this farcical agreement is scrapped. When, not if, it does, sign language interpreters and Deaf people will have you to thank for that and I am humbled and grateful.

Inequality before the Law? It’s Reality

A Sign Language Interpreter has submitted, anonymously, this story for you all to read. Comment is made afterwards:

‘An interpreter was warned to attend court c/o ALS and its preferred supplier of Sign Language Interpreters.  The interpreter had little experience of court work generally and no knowledge of the defendant, no knowledge of the indictment and no knowledge of the type or stage in proceedings.  The booking had been made a mere two days earlier by the agency’s assessment that it was ‘straight forward, quick and well within the interpreters’ capability’.

The interpreter had been informed that a relay interpreter would attend also to facilitate communications.  They did not know the relay interpreter, had never worked with them before and actually had no idea why in fact a relay interpreter was required for the case…

The relay interpreter arrived not only late but also dressed most inappropriately for a court case.  They too had no idea of the indictment, defendant, stage of proceedings etc.  The relay interpreter immediately declared that they had never worked in a court before.  The defence lawyer had immediate and very serious concerns about the communication provision for their client.  Representations were made immediately to the court.  Meanwhile, as it is a small community, it was quickly discovered that the relay interpreter had a fairly substantial court career with a number of both recent and historic criminal convictions – with even further cases pending!

The relay interpreter admitted, to the hearing interpreter, that there were many reasons why they must not and should not work in court or other legal settings.  The relay interpreter stated it had ‘been a mistake’ to accept the job from the agency, but that no CRB clearance had been requested and no proof of experience had been required.  The relay interpreter, instead of reporting to the usher, decided to leave the building with no explanation to the court whatsoever.

The hearing interpreter entered the courtroom and explained to the judge that they had no choice but to withdraw from the assignment.  The withdrawal was put on the following grounds that: 1. they had been falsely warned to the assignment; 2. they were unable to function effectively alone; 3. they would not be able to perform the task satisfactorily unto the language need and complexity of the case and 4. that it would put justice in too greater jeopardy.  The interpreter further disclosed to the court the full details of the concerns pertaining to the equally inappropriate and dangerous relay interpreter.

The judge thanked the interpreter for their honesty and integrity.   They made a note of the necessary details to be referred to the court presiders regarding the enormous danger that the defendant had faced unto ALS and its’ preferred supplier.’

Some extrapolation from the above:

- Readers of this blog, be it sign language interpreters or users of services, may not fully understand the reality of outsourcing and the resulting situation we are faced with. This is an additional, and altogether more serious, example to the ones on the previous post.

- Many booking co-ordinators, especially ones at less than reputable agencies, can not necessarily be relied upon to have specialist knowledge.

- Interpreters should accept assignments for which they are prepared, skilled, ready… As the interpreter, the buck stops with you.

- Court or Police work is not glamourous and does not afford an interpreter extra status or kudos. Your work could be held up to account, may be examined by an expert witness, investigated by defence teams and you could find yourself in a situation where you are being called as a witness.

- It is highly likely that a three hour training course will not be sufficient to ensure you are fully competent to work in a court. Even if it contains in the title the word ‘Masterclass’. Try some shadowing first. And a mentor. Or better still don’t work for the company that everyone loves, with good reason, to hate.

If you are witness to anything, wish to write a guest blog post or wish to send something in for further comment please email to interpreteranon@gmail.com.

A big thank you to our anonymous poster.

Inequality Before the Law: Access to Justice for Deaf people

If you haven’t heard yet, how could you have not, the MoJ framework agreement for interpreting services is a disaster.

Anyone who wants to know more can read more on Linguist Lounge where there exists 27 pages (to date) of reports from spoken language interpreters, solicitors and other legal personnel.

If you want further evidence, a survey by Crime Line of its readers revealed some interesting data for the period Monday 12th – Friday 16th March. Of 403 responses received:

• In more than half of all cases no interpreter showed up
• In only 26% of cases did the interpreter appear as requested
• In 18% of cases the interpreter was late for the hearing

It’s harder to know what is happening with Sign Language interpreting under the contract but as ever Deaf people are losing out. Here follows some observations and reports of the situation so far.

The contract did not fully roll out until the 1st March even though the sub-contracted agency was claiming it had filled 97% of bookings. That’s because it didn’t have all of them yet.

There has been evidence from interpreters on the ground of the following:

Booking interpreters for part trials, something that erodes current best practice and makes interpreting much more difficult to do -

‘They wanted to book me for a 10 day court case with a few different co-interpreters so that they could all get experience of working with me. They didn’t even want to book me for the whole 10 days just the first week and days 9 and 10.’

No shows:

‘I turned up at a family court to interpret for the mother and her solicitor for a two day final hearing. The court had been unable to source the usual two court interpreters. I had to explain to the judge I could not interpret for the court and both parties due to impartiality and exhaustion. He was not happy but the case had to be adjourned.’

‘A booking went out on a Monday morning for two court interpreters for a five day trial starting immediately. It is impossible to organise that. The same booking went out later that week but for August. The case must have been adjourned.’

‘I turned up to interpret for the solicitor at a sentencing hearing. The court had not managed to book an interpreter. I had to interpret for both the solicitor and the court instead.’

Appropriately experienced interpreters. The danger of this contract is it stipulates a Registered Sign Language Interpreter. In theory any interpreter booked may fit that criteria but needn’t have any court experience or training. Two further anecdotes:

‘I turned up at court and the Deaf advocate had brought their own interpreter which was unusual. The week before the advocate had gone to court and neither they nor the Deaf defendant had understood the interpreters provided under this contract. When they found out I was an experienced court interpreter and not working under the contract they said they were relieved.’

‘I was working for a barrister at Crown Court. The Deaf defendant did not understand the two court interpreters. If I were not there to step in he just would not have understood anything.’

‘An interpreter I know who has just qualified is starting to do legal work. She can’t wait to get in a court room but she has absolutely no experience. I shudder to think what will happen and it’s not the first time I’ve heard someone say this.’

The above incidences are undoubtedly the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Please do record any incidences you are aware of as a comment on this blog post.

The report Equality before the Law: Deaf People’s Access to Justice was published in 1997, 15 years ago. It was fundamental in ensuring Deaf people could access the justice system by setting out recommendations for courts and interpreters. The report was written after the infamous murder trial of Smith, Smith and Sams at the Old Bailey. After seven weeks a mistrial was declared due to a failure in interpreter provision. The report came at a time when a group of interpreters said they would do the trial under certain conditions thereby putting into practice the safeguards we have been used to since that time.

What we can is safely assume is that the best practice we have seen over the years has been eroded by this contract and that without those standards in place, the worst is yet to come.

Using a Professional is the Only Safeguard – Part 2

This blog is part 2 of 2. Following on from part 1, where the term profession was discussed, let’s go back to why interpreting is being outsourced in the first place.

Services are being outsourced to save money. Services that are deemed as being a ‘Back Office Function’.

This phrase is being repeated by the Ministry of Justice, by commissioners nationwide, by Ministers and by David Cameron.

Back Office Function. What is a Back Office function? Logic dictates it is a function that exists back of house probably in an office. This would include administration, IT, facilities management, ordering of equipment say.

Any intelligent being would surely not class interpreting as a Back Office Function. No. Surely it is a specialism. To be done by people who know how to do so. People. Wait… professionals who have been trained and have experience before being let loose in a courtroom.

Interpreting as a Back Office Function? It’s illogical.  Outsourcing is now going way beyond what would normally be termed Back Office Functions.

Strange given the track record of disasters whenever the British government attempt to outsource. Capita got the name Crapita for good reason after disasters such as people nearly getting evicted when systems failed and did not pay out housing benefit claims in time. And bear in mind this is the company that has bought ALS and where the buck currently stops for interpreting services for the MoJ. As one publication has pointed out Capita should stick to back office business functions.

So why is the government taking the risk of outsourcing for areas others than more traditional business functions?

1) Crony capitalism.

This is endemic and epitomised in the coalition government’s support of big business over small or medium enterprises. This is despite what is touted in its reports. None of the framework agreements or procurement hubs now favoured by statutory organisations make it easy for the smaller enterprise to win contracts. Where the small enterprise is the specialist sign language agency, they lose out.

Sign Language interpreting services are becoming sub-contractors to the bigger spoken language agencies. Assignments are regularly being sub-sub-sub-contracted. By the time the interpreter is paid there is little left. Everyone up the food chain needs to make their buck. The result of which, at the other end, is that the statutory organisation comes away with little savings and interpreters travel the breadth of the country when there was a registered interpreter next door to the hospital sat at home unpaid.

2) Back door privatisation.

We have the Conservatives in government. They wish to privatise everything.

3) Ministers and senior civil servants need answers.

Outsourcing is an easy answer to coming up with savings rather than appropriately conducted research and consultation, with the caveat that information gleaned from consultation should be heeded. The word consultation has become a misnomer in the UK. It has come to mean you will speak up then be ignored.

Ministers have often said they lack skills in running large departments. One author suggests this is indicative of an eroded civil service with an overreliance on expensive consultants or specialist advisors rather than looking inward to creating those skills and utilising them.

As Peter Handcock CBE, Chief Executive, Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) before the Justice Select Committee said so eloquently:

“So it is partly the process of letting a new contract and putting it in place, but, but we need to do, frankly we need to do much much better understanding the potential risks before we roll these things out.”

An admission of the lack of understanding. Has the government taken any advice on the subject of interpreting services? It seems they have ignored much of what interpreters have been telling them through the various consultations.

Therein lies the explanation of why interpreting is now being seen as a Back Office Function. And what of the effect of this policy, why does it go so horribly wrong, especially where professions are concerned?

Unit costs get ever cheaper in the bidding war for a contract. Unless there are safeguards and standards in place enforced upon the contract provider the temptation is to employ the cheapest personnel and disregard quality.

Sign Language interpreters have seen it happen already in most NHS trusts around the country. Chaos caused by large scale employment of untrained interpreters by sub-standard agencies (usually spoken language ones, though some sign language specialist agencies are also to blame). Yet the NHS and the MoJ are paying for these services.

A colleague did some mystery shopping amongst some new agencies that had won NHS contracts in and around London. Scarily, they wanted to accept her on their books without checking any qualifications, any registration. They did not even ask for insurance or a police check. Some didn’t even care if she actually knew any sign language.

When contracts are awarded to these agencies, the provision of interpreters then becomes tokenism, paying lipservice to the Equality Act 2010. These are specialist services that are commissioned, monitored and evaluated by non-specialists without the necessary in built safeguards, which you would have if professionals were employed. Services commissioned from those that call themselves specialists but are not. Of course outsourcing interpreting services was bound to fail. And fail it has.

The government, local and national, has made a categoric error in outsourcing interpreting services across the public sector. With regard to the MoJ, when this is the kind of service you are paying for you are not saving £18 million. You are losing £300 million.

Using a Professional is the Only Safeguard – Part 1

This post is part one of two. The first part will explain generally what a profession is and make distinctions between what some may consider a profession and what is truly a profession. The second post will consider the current comments of government surrounding the MoJ and other contracts to further highlight the fallacy behind outsourcing for those that should be considered professionals and the risks the government are incurring with this strategy.

The term profession is often bandied about. Anyone can call themselves a professional: marketeers, IT personnel, plumbers.

Let’s be clear. There is something beyond these albeit worthy roles. This is about a professional. One who has a Code of Ethics or Professional Conduct, a CRB check, has a high level of training, alongside specialised knowledge and skills, belongs to an organised regulator and has responsibility to a community and is concerned with its welfare above all else.

Teachers will tell you the supply teacher is all but gone in the UK. Rather than employ a qualified teacher to plug any gaps in timetables it is the new employee at the front of the class: one who is on a Registered Teacher Programme (RTP), who is not as yet qualified to teach. Or worse, sometimes it is the Teaching Assistant who is left holding the fort.

Psychologists will tell you that work previously done by highly qualified and trained Psychologists is now being done by those trained in IAPT: Improving Access to Psychological Therapies. You now need to pass a one year course to deliver CBT.

Nurses will tell you a lot of their work is now done by Health Care Assistants.

There are many similarities between the above three professions and interpreting, whether spoken or for sign language. You should be bound by a Code of Ethics or Professional Conduct, have an enhanced CRB check, professional insurance, be accessing supervision and be registered with the appropriate professional body in order to work. In fact all the criteria mentioned at the start of this article.

What is different with interpreting and what Sign Language interpreters have been discussing for a long time is the lack of legal protection. Were interpreters to be legally protected, it would be illegal to work as an interpreter unless you were a registered professional in the same way you can not legally work as a doctor if you are struck off the medical register held by the GMC.

Why? This goes back to the list of what it is to be a professional and the responsibility we have to the community we serve. Over the last 25-30 years we have witnessed and heard terrible stories of what happens when you do not have a registered interpreter. We have fought as a profession to raise and safeguard those standards and to continue to develop the profession.

We have heard about the level 2 ‘signer’ work in a court room (the equivalent of conversational French). We have heard about the police tape that got pulled apart by the defence team due to the sub-standard interpreting causing the eventual collapse of a case. We know the all too familiar stories of mishaps, misdiagnoses, even deaths. We all know the students who leave schools and colleges without qualifications because they didn’t understand the ‘communicator’. These aren’t the stories of yesteryear, the bad old days before we had a register and better qualifications, though both of those points are moot. These are fast becoming today’s stories.

You would not allow a Health Care Assistant to draw blood or dispense medication. You would not allow an IAPT practitioner to diagnose someone with schizophrenia. You would not allow a Teaching Assistant to deliver A Level Physics or PSHE. This creates rather than mitigates risk. Risks to standards, to service delivery, to people.

When you allow an untrained, unregistered interpreter to work in a hospital, a courtroom or a police station you play with risk, you create risk. And nobody present can monitor that.

It is why we have Codes of Ethics for professionals. Interpreters, in the same way as other professions, cannot always be monitored. They are responsible for monitoring their own actions and behaviours, to be responsible for themselves and those they serve. Codes of Ethics were borne out of the Hippocratic Oath, the fundamental principle of which is do no harm.

Employ someone who is not a professional, you no longer have those safeguards. No matter what monitoring has been added to the contract the commissioner is not omnipresent. Even if they were they would not be qualified in assessing whether that person was competent and had successfully completed their duties. Does the commissioner, judge, solicitor, doctor, nurse have access to the languages the ‘interpreter’ purports to know? Is someone unregistered really someone you can trust?

The only safeguard is simply to use a professional, one who is appropriately trained and registered. In the UK, where a framework agreement exists for interpreting that safeguard has been all but removed.