One Year on: The Ministry of Justice’s Failed Interpreting Contract

The latest on the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) contract, which is approaching its one year anniversary, is that the contract holders, Capita are still hanging on. From 8th January the travel costs are being slashed to 20p per mile. Travel costs were the only benefit for people accepting a job as a ‘linguist’ (their term for an untrained interpreter and insulting to real linguists). There are already grumblings.

Any clued-up interpreter knew this was due to happen and it is why the boycott has been admirably sustained by all those that are professionals and know their worth. Here follows a summary of what has happened over the last year:

• Key interpreter organisations object to a monopoly contract and point out what should be the minimum standards as already set up in the National Agreement.
• ALS awarded contract by promising unsustainable savings despite protests.
• ALS offers interpreters greatly reduced payments for working in courts.
• Professional interpreters refuse to work under these conditions for ludicrously low payments.
• The courts are thrown into chaos with many bookings unfilled and courts experiencing many adjournments and delays.
• Bonuses are paid to entice anyone to accept work (£5 extra for accepting an online booking) and mileage and payments are increased to entice ‘linguists’ to court.
• Untrained, unqualified speakers of other languages, sometimes those who do not even speak the languages they say they do, start to work for the contract.
• Reports are numerous amongst interpreters and reach the UK media of linguists travelling miles to rack up travel payments.
• Courts continue to experience severe delays.
• Capita takes over ALS and pays £7.5 million and invests a further £5.4 million.
• Several ALS and Capita personnel leave including ex-Chief Executive Gavin Wheeldon.
• Parliamentary hearings confirm what everybody knew: the contract holders know nothing about interpreting or the standards that were put in place before the contract removed them.
• From instructions set out by the Public Accounts Committee, Capita start to CRB check the ‘linguists’ registered on its database, check whether they actually have qualifications and start to tighten up checks. These were fairly non-existent until this point.
• A year after the contract starts mileage rates slashed to 20p per mile and effort is made to find local personnel, the contract promised that interpreters would be sourced from within a 25 mile radius, but with the payments originally offered this did not happen.

The next chapter in this story will surely be that no-one will work for Capita at the proposed rates. £16 – £22 per hour for a court job, with many being classed at the £16 per hour level – if someone paid out more than they were allowed to claim and travelled far to attend a job, Capita’s so-called linguists would be working for less than the minimum wage. The MoJ surely could not expect professionals for those prices and professionals it does not get. The courts have seen a parade of second-jobbers standing in for professional interpreters including hotel staff walking out of courts before hearings are finished to get back to their real jobs, reports of mis-interpretations abound and ‘linguists’ who do not speak their stated languages.

Capita’s website reveals no mention of standards, of registration (NRPSI or NRCPD), of minimum levels of qualifications, of CRB checks, Codes of Conduct or professional indemnity insurance. The only word they use is ‘qualified’. In what exactly, it is not clear. Perhaps anything other than languages or even interpreting, going by the personnel they are still sending to courts.

And what of Sign Language Interpreting? The contract has changed the face of interpreting mainly due to how the booking system works. The Capita monopoly just does not work. With patches of evidence of lowered standards in place it ticks over, many afraid to report bad practice due to confidentiality. More job requests are issued directly from courts and are being farmed out to agencies who have never been heard of and who may never have booked a Sign Language Interpreter. Worrying as they will not be aware of our standards of registration. With no monitoring of the contract by the MoJ this leaves us in a risky situation that has already seen influent sign language users, who are not yet registered interpreters, working in courts, despite promises by the MoJ.

There no longer seems to be a preferred supplier as the jobs that are released by Capita go out to a myriad of sign language interpreting agencies and some spoken language ones. Let us remember whenever there is a monopoly situation, the larger company inevitably uses competition between sub-contractors to drive the price down. We have seen this with another large spoken language agency and their numerous public service contracts leaving us in a situation where the least experienced interpreters are doing jobs that should be done by the most experienced such as mental health, child protection and probation.

In the courts it has been reported that some newly registered interpreters are accepting court or police work, often without any additional training. Why? Some agencies like to reassure interpreters they are capable. Less scrupulous agencies will tell an interpreter anything to fill the job. It is not their decision whether an interpreter should do the job but it is up to the interpreter in question. This practice by agencies has happened for years but newer interpreters are left ever more vulnerable by a changed economic landscape and an unwillingness to pay for support networks such as ASLI. This is how many of us learned to be professionals and to see ourselves as a collective. Let us all remind ourselves of the NRCPD’s Code of Conduct for competence: You must recognise and work within the limits of your competence, and if necessary, refer on to another proficient professional.

Although there are still experienced court interpreters working for Capita. Many are not or state they are experienced but actually are not up to the job. One of the most important skills a court interpreter should have is an ability to monitor their own output and enter into discussions about their work. If you see bad practice in courts please report it to the NRCPD. Often the Deaf clients, if vulnerable, will not be able to do so. It is our duty.

Stories abound of clients not understanding court interpreters. Perhaps interpreters are not insisting on Deaf relay interpreters when it is needed, perhaps when one is not present they do not have the skills to deliver the court proceedings in a way that the Deaf people present will understand something, no matter what their level of language or conceptual understanding. Court work is often not the same as working with a Deaf person who has such good language skills that even if you are not that good an interpreter they will do the processing for you whilst you sign something vaguely relevant to what is going on.

One reader of this blog reports: One client stated they had not understood the interpreters in court and she did not know what she had been there for, what the charge was and what the outcome of the proceedings were. When pressed by the solicitor she could not answer. The interpreter states they interpreted in more or less international sign as this was not a native user of BSL. Her companion eventually stated the charge, that she was found guilty but had not yet been sentenced.

Unfortunately this is more common than it used to be. Will our situation get worse if we too are subjected to a further drop in terms and conditions? Capita will be looking to make savings somewhere as they can not drop the rates of spoken language interpreters any more than they have. With a flat rate of £34 per hour that is not a margin that screams profit, especially not when they are being subjected to wasted costs orders by judges. With no mention of standards of BSL/English interpreting stated presumably they are covered to send anyone who can pick up their hands and pretend, much like the linguists who speak Bulgarian but interpret in Russian and which ever language they can get away with.

This is not access to justice for Deaf people and especially not for speakers of other languages. The British justice system is often seen as the fairest in the world. Just not anymore if you speak another language.

National Audit Office Report on the MoJ’s Interpreting Contract

There was a hearing by the Public Accounts Committee on Monday 15th October following the recent publication of a report by the National Audit Office (NAO) on the Ministry of Justice’s contract for interpreting and translation which was damning. Firstly comments on the NAO report dated 10th September.

Spoken language interpreters have done an impressive job in collecting a dossier of evidence to present to the NAO and the Justice Select Committee, whose hearing is due on 23rd October.

The NAO has done its own research into the contract and thought the failings in the contract were apparent. Those in the know from the reality on the ground, know it is much worse than the already awful picture portrayed by the NAO’s report.

Other have commented on the report already. Here are some more including links to other reports:

It is stated that on the 22nd Feb the MoJ threatened to rescind the contract (a mere 22 days into it). Why it was allowed to continue is a mystery. The mayhem continues and this includes BSL with no interpreters provided, bookings at short notice and a multitude of agencies now being used to fill the contract. ALS/Capita have continued to throw money at it including having to pay wasted cost orders issued by judges. Those fines do not include the obvious costs of having to haul your Barristers in front of a bench quite regularly. Do not think wasted costs have stopped. They continue.

The report quotes (section 3.8) that interpreters had a pay drop of 8%. This rather modest figure has been checked and recalculated. It’s not true. If it were 8% why would linguists have been travelling the country accepting assignments just to make a profit on the travel? Klasiena Slaney has worked out the figure is actually in the region of a 60-80% drop leaving interpreters earning below the minimum wage.

Stats of 98% fulfilled bookings had been quoted for ‘some days’. This begs the questions: filled with what kind of quality of interpreter when only 13%, some 300 NRPSIs are working for this contract (3.18). The MoJ say ALS are currently filling 95% of bookings. The overall 98% target seems to have been forgotten by the MoJ. It could be claiming service credits worth thousands but is not because it is not holding the contractors to account.

A particular favourite was section 3.12 – payments for linguists could be entered on the portal by the linguists themselves. Considering this was allowed by people employed without CRB checks, coupled with reports of ex-criminals working as interpreters to help get their partners-in-crime let off, it is a serious matter.

ALS/Capita now says it can not assess some languages as set out in the contract, section 3.16. The interpreting organisations did forewarn the MoJ.

Overall apart from these findings, the NAO report appears to still support the contract. It states (2.17) that Capita’s review in July of ALS shows that there is now less risk. That is a given. It could not be any worse than it was.

The report excuses the MoJ: they just were not aware of how interpreting was arranged and the true costs involved. Indeed. There should have been proper research done before awarding a national contract on the basis of guesstimates to a relatively small company.

At the end of the day the MoJ were given a report stating they should award a contract to ALS of no more than £1 million as this posed a risk. The MoJ wanted to award them a contract worth £42 million. The NAO criticises the MoJ for a lack of due diligence on this point. It is quite clearly outsourcing gone mad. Even thatcher wouldn’t have done that.

For further analysis of the NAO report see the excellent and often quoted LinguistLounge.org.

The MoJ Interpreting Contract Fiasco: Is It Over?

Anecdotal reports over the past few weeks have pointed to continued failures of provision of interpreters to the MoJ. Interpreters are still travelling from Birmingham to London for a morning’s work then failing to stay for the afternoon leaving courts stranded as the only way a ‘linguist’, i.e. untrained interpreter, can make a living is by increasing their travel expenses.

The ‘linguist’ who caused a collapsed trial to the tune of £25k was seen working in courts again despite the collapse being in the papers.

West Midlands Police are letting suspects out on bail as it is taking days to get someone to come to the station, once this reportedly included witnesses in a murder case.

Criminals who have not been CRB checked are working in courts as ‘linguists’ and are reportedly ‘helping their mates stay out of jail.’

Other reports suggest some courts have given up using the national framework agreement (FWA) altogether and are back to sourcing their own interpreters. This would be one reason that would explain, amongst others, why many more court bookings are coming through a variety of agencies for Sign Language Interpreters.

Key ALS executives, David Joseph and Richard Loyer, amongst others, who were in charge of interpreting have reportedly left and joined a translation company called Language Wire and Gavin Wheeldon no longer has ALS as current on his LinkedIn profile and is now working for a catering company.

The misinformation that has been coming out from Minsters, namely Crispin Blunt, that interpreters earned six figure salaries, that the old system was a complete mess and that the new all-singing, all-dancing systems were going to save millions was always going to be hard to counteract.

The problem for government has always been that the figures the proposed savings were calculated on were created out of thin air. This is why FOI’s have gone unanswered. There are no figures. The only figures we have were created by the company themselves. Rather than proper research, a comprehensive scoping exercise with well thought out recommendations, what really happened was the contract was given to the lowest bidder and we were left with a mess.

It may seem quiet. It isn’t. It is just that the media is waiting for the outcome of the political fight which is happening behind closed doors and about to come to fruition. Hats off to the Professional Interpreters for Justice, Unite the Union, the Professional Interpreters’ Alliance, APCI, SPSI and all the interpreters who have held firm and boycotted the contract at risk of losing their livelihoods, their homes. What we have now is stalemate.

MP Magaret Hodge took the concerns of interpreters to the National Audit Office and the contract is being investigated. Dossiers of the many failures observed by interpreters monitoring the courts when they had no work have been produced as evidence. The Public Accounts Office have been alerted. So too the Justice Select Committee. A parliamentary event for MPs is being organised.

In the contract, failure to supply results in penalties. Judges who are minded to do so when cases have been adjourned have charged ALS with wasted costs orders. The barrister costs for each time a wasted costs order is brought must be substantial. The other penalties in the form of service credits as stated in the FWA can not be profitable. The proposed figure that Capita is losing on this contract that I have heard from three difference sources is a hefty sum. Per week. Capita can afford to take the loss but why keep a contract that does not and cannot perform?

The original business model was to supply language speakers within a 25 miles radius cheaply to courts having made these potential ‘interpreters’ pay for their own assessments at £125. That got dropped within weeks of the start of the contract to ‘free’ when noone would work for this company, then the assessment was dropped altogether. ALS are reportedly now saying that they will insist their interpreters are properly qualified and they should have passed the DPSI exam. The weekly updates of proposed service improvments mean that the original business model barely exists. It can not be profitable any longer and with growing political pressure it is surely only a matter of time before talks with interpreting associations will resume and alternatives to this fiasco will be tabled.

We are looking at a real opportunity. No longer do the media label interpreters as scroungers, the courts can recognise an interpreter of quality and work can be done with government on ensuring trained, registered interpreters are in court working for fair pay, and being respected for it. And the government could save money if it learns its lesson and works with the interpreting associations rather than against. They’ll be a lot of people soon saying I told you so.

PIA Meeting for Interpreters: Why you should Join the Boycott

I attended the PIA (Professional Interpreters’Alliance) meeting today in Birmingham along with seven other Sign Language Interpreters. We made an interesting little cohort at the back and everyone was pleased to see us. It felt a little bit like we came to the party late but at least we had finally turned up. I’m going to join too as it is only a tenner.

There is much worth repeating here for the benefit of those that could not make it and perhaps for Sign Language Interpreters this will help in being able to make an informed choice about whether or not to boycott the MoJ’s contract for interpreting and translation awarded to ALS now owned by Capita.

Firstly there was a reminder about how far court interpreting had come and how this contract has returned us straight back to a time when interpreting did not have rigorous standards in place.  The case of Iqbal Begum was quoted. She was a Pakistani woman who since arriving in the UK had suffered a torrent of domestic violence at the hands of her husband. One day when she could take it no longer she hit him over the head with an iron bar and killed him. Having learnt little English, she required an interpreter. This was in 1981. She had only answered one question to say she understood the charge against her. She had pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced accordingly without understanding the term manslaughter. She served four years in jail before an appeal. The details of which were only released in 1991 after pressure from the local community in Birmingham.

Whilst trawling the internet I found news of two publications released in 2004 highlighting standards within interpreting: An Equality Handbook for Judges and a guide to commissioning excellent interpreting services published by CILT. A mere eight years later and they may as well have not been written.

We then heard how David Cameron whilst speaking to voluntary associations, before the Coalition government came to power, said in a speech that they would distance themselves from large companies, that ministers would be encouraged NOT to outsource but rather that they should be more innovative and award contracts to smaller companies. The CEO of Capita, Paul Pindar was said upon the news that the Conservatives were in power that this was a good opportunity for them. They have since increased their turnover by 17%  to £2.6 billion. That is £325 million in pre-tax profits.

We heard that many linguists have been out of pocket by the time they have travelled and paid for petrol on the payments they have received. One man was even more out of pocket after non-payment.

We heard how the previous system may not have been perfect (what system is?) but that at least there was a system: courts could book direct using the NRPSI register of interpreters who had been trained and assessed through the Institute of Linguists and where the courts and associated services adhered to the National Agreement which was in place. What we have now of course is one company who has become the regulator, the trainer and assessor (though not many ‘linguists’ seem to have gone through any assessment at all) and there are few standards being upheld. There are many stories of ALS personnel sitting in the dock and not speaking a word to the defendant. There is clearly no interpreting involved here.

Next up we discussed how interpreting associations have not suggested a boycott but rather informed their members of the information and options available to them. Judges and solicitors have reportedly been impressed by the will of court interpreters to continue the boycott. This is impressive when you realise that many have been without work for over three months since this contract begun. That is the strength with which they fight this contract and the refusal to be denigrated into accepting less and having their profession torn apart.

So what of the future? We were urged to contact our MPs, to get questions asked in the Houses of Parliament. FOI requests are being ignored and the excuse used is that there are no centrally held records. As the cost would be prohibitive in collecting the data the FOI can then be dismissed. Getting your MP to ask questions is the only way.

We talked about the figures due to be released by the MoJ on Thursday which will cover the first three months that the contract was in place to the 30^th April. Of course these are not the MoJ’s statistics. They are being collated by ALS. The stats are hardly likely to be unfavourable. How is that for public accountability?

The options for interpreters were discussed. As many now know, ALS are not filling this contract alone. Bookings are being farmed out to agencies (this is true in the case of Sign Language too with no less than four other agencies being handed out bookings, there maybe more).

Let us be clear, if you work for ANY agency doing a court (or police, or probation) booking you are helping this contract survive.

Courts are also now allowed to book interpreters direct. This is also true for Sign Language. There was much discussion about whether we should all boycott courts too. Although it is true that a contrast can be seen in quality when a properly trained and registered interpreter attends a booking it was whole-heartedly agreed that the boycott should continue.

The words that have been used are that this contract has created a ‘mixed economy’. It hasn’t. This contract is nothing more than a dangerous monopoly. Dangerous as it leaves a non-specialist in control of market conditions i.e. OUR terms and conditions. And do not think you are safe. In 2010 Sign Language Interpreters were hit by a tidal wave of outsourcing when the North West procurement hub handed over contracts to ALS thereby creating a local monopoly. Talk to any interpreter there and they will tell you what happened to standards, what happened to their terms and conditions.

What we had today was a room full of passionate interpreters who care about standards and access. Who have earned very little money in the last three months. Who understand that to work for this contract is to put nails in the proverbial coffin of our profession.

If you are a Sign Language Interpreter do not think you are safe. You are not. It is not that we are next, it has already happened. Our T&C’s are all ripe for the eroding now we have a monopoly and BSL and other spoken language agencies chomping at the bit to stay in business. One of whom stuck an unregistered signer in a courtroom.

Last week as I was a solicitors’ interpreter in court a BSL interpreter turned up for the first time. On the previous five occasions since this contract started… no interpreter. I could not bring myself to talk to her.

If you are an interpreter reading this, if you had been in that room today and you were aware of just what this contract has done, how the government has devalued interpreting, you saw the passion and commitment of the interpreters present and heard what the risks are of working for this company… No. You would be boycotting the framework agreement and any agency associated with the contract too.

How to save money on Court Interpreters: Don’t book them

We are approaching the end of April, the time at which the contract between ALS and the MoJ for provision of interpreting and translation is due to be reviewed. To mark this occasion the spoken language interpreters have organised another London demo.

Without monitoring information being made public we do not know the real effect of this framework agreement. In fact neither do ministers. A recent question in the House of Commons to the Attorney General highlighted this problem. When asked what the cost was of delays and adjournments due to late or non-attendance of interpreters the answer was the cost of collecting data would be disproportionate.

This lack of centralised data is, of course, why the contract was awarded and why savings are not materialising in the way they should have been. The figures the government have used were based on estimates and extrapolations. The result has been an unworkable agreement and a refusal by NRPSIs to work under the contract. Interpreters are being sent miles to work (the promise was interpreters would come from a 25 miles radius, the reality is up to a 564 round trip, 366 miles, you can find many more examples on LinguistLounge.org). And the personnel are not necessarily, also as promised, qualified interpreters either but anyone who says they can speak another language with speakers being sourced from the streets outside of court, pizza delivery boys and Google Translate being used in emergencies.

The more worrying trend is that due to this debacle courts have just given up trying to book an interpreter. An irony as the new system was supposed to make it all easier. A Sign Language Interpreter sent in this experience:

‘I attended a Crown Court the other day having been booked by the defence. I have already, last month, been to a family court where I was the only interpreter booked when there should have been four and had strong suspicions that there would be no court interpreter present.

On arriving in Crown Court I discovered quickly there were indeed no court interpreters and I was expected to interpret all consultations outside of court for the defence as well as the court proceedings. In my previous experience the court books interpreters and for a pre-sentencing hearing such as this a court interpreter can interpret consultations for defence too or there would be two interpreters present, especially for a difficult case such as the one I was there to do. After five hours of interpreting inside and outside of court the defendant was sentenced. The judge addressed the defence Barrister and thanked him for the use of his interpreter and explained to the court that since the new contract had come into force the court was finding it was nearly impossible to get an interpreter through this new system. The judge then thanked me for my hard work and left the court.’

With the three month review period approaching and a government who is only concerned about cutting costs it would not be surprising if the MoJ states how the new framework has saved them rather a lot of money:

- When interpreters are booked by Counsel, rather than by the courts, the cost is covered by Legal Aid. These are still funds from the public purse but as the costs will not show up under the framework agreement the MoJ will assume they are spending less.

- When court cases go ahead with Google Translate there is no cost to the public purse. But unlikely a fair and just result will occur.

- When speakers of other languages are dragged in off the street, are they paid? Probably not.

- When adjournments and delays occur there is great cost to the public purse. As these are not centrally recorded there will be only anecdotal and no statistical evidence. And, again, they will not be reflected as costs under the framework agreement.

- There are reports that the booking system which is supposed to provide a one-stop shop is not working and courts can barely get through to talk to someone. Oh and the call centres are in various parts of the world where they do not understand geographical distances. If courts can not use a system to book an interpreter the MoJ, again, saves money.

In reality this framework agreement maybe appearing to save the MoJ costs but this is unlikely to be the case. Instead of making interpreter bookings more efficient it has made more work for court staff, reduced efficiencies for court personnel including barristers and judges and has taken away good quality access by trained and registered interpreters in favour of a hodge-podge of workarounds when a qualified interpreter is not sourced. Which is more frequently than not. No, this framework agreement is surely saving the MoJ money. They are no longer booking Court Interpreters.

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.

MoJ Interpreting Contract: Parliamentary Questions Update

Parliamentary questions that were being asked by the MP Andy Slaughter were published on a few forums this week. The answers by Minister Crispin Blunt were sent around today and are published below. The contract started on 30th January. Two weeks in, the MoJ were made aware of the difficulties in service delivery.

Mr Blunt uses an interesting word here: safeguarding. The very nature of this contract does in fact the opposite by renegading on a National Agreement that was previously in force to use only registered interpreters. Allowing a private company to set up their own register was folly. Many spoken language interpreters are saying their names are on the ALS database even though they never agreed to it giving the agency a falsely elevated figure of interpreters willing to work for them. The stories on the ground illustrate the fact that the rights of those needing a vetted, qualified interpreter were quashed with this contract.

Mr Slaughter: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) when he was made aware of problems with the provision of translators to the courts service by Applied Language Solutions; and if he will make a statement; [96653]

(2) whether (a) he, (b) other Ministers in his Department and (c) officials in his Department had any involvement in the acquisition of Applied Language Solutions by Capita; and if he will make a statement; [96654]

(3) whether providers of interpretation and translation services to the courts are required to undertake Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks on their employees; and whether Applied Language Solutions undertakes CRB checks on its interpreters; [96655]

(4) what long-term measures he plans to implement to ensure that Applied Language Solutions provides qualified interpreters to the courts service. [96656]

Mr Blunt: The information is as follows.

(1) Ministers were made aware of difficulties with the service provided by Applied Language Solutions on 14 February 2012. We are committed to ensuring that the rights and needs of those who require interpreters are safeguarded and we have asked the contractor to take urgent steps to improve performance. I am receiving regular reports on progress.

(2) Neither the Secretary of State for Justice, nor Justice Ministers or Ministry of Justice officials had any involvement in the acquisition of ALS by Capita.

(3) The contractor is required to ensure appropriate Criminal Records Bureau checks are undertaken.

(4) The Ministry have made clear to the contractor that the problems must be addressed immediately. The contractor is taking urgent steps to improve performance including providing additional staff to deal with bookings, further targeted recruitment of interpreters

27 Feb 2012 : Column 72W

in key languages and improvements to the call handling and complaints process. The Ministry is monitoring performance on a daily basis.