When we resign ourselves to acceptance, do we desensitise ourselves to what is happening on the ground?

Have Interpreters resigned themselves to accept and even expect that level of access provided to the Deaf community, that they have trained to serve, to be as poor as it is in this current day?

I am not naive to the fact that the situation we find ourselves in today with ‘signers’ turning up to jobs parading themselves as Interpreters is anything new; it has been going on decades. However we are in 2012. We now have over 700 Registered Sign Language Interpreters (RSLIs) on the NRCPD register and many more Trainee (TI) and Junior Trainee Interpreters (JTIs) quickly following in their footsteps. Is it acceptable that at medical appointments people are still forced to accept ‘signers’ or worse still, use their parents, friends, children?

When the first video was published on Facebook from ASLI’s Professional & Consumers Working Group, urging the Deaf community to come forward with their stories of poor access to Healthcare, it did cause a stir in the Deaf community, but it wasn’t enough for people to come forward. It was perhaps that the Deaf community were just ‘used to’ the level of access they were being provided. Probably because in the areas where there is poor service, it is what they have received for years and so this has become expected. People have perhaps become resigned to their fate.

I believe that Interpreters may have resigned themselves to the same fate. We have become so used to hearing all these stories intermittently through our everyday working lives that we have become hardened to them. This may be a form of self-preservation, professional preservation even, but what does it achieve? The ‘signers’ are still out there, still taking on work, still causing upset and mayhem when they are unable to cope with the level of Sign Language or English used; and they are parading themselves as members of our profession. I’m sure we all agree that they are clearly not professional otherwise they would know and understand their limits and not take on such work in the first place.

But what are we doing about it? There are a few who are standing up to defend the profession, a few working on standards and awareness in an effort to prevent such harm, but a handful of 700 is hardly going to make waves. The ripples can only reach so far. If everyone sticks their head in the sand, or carries on thinking all is well because someone else is already fighting the cause, then we are not going to get very far.

We all need to do our bit, wear our NRCPD badges to EVERY job, even those regular bookings in that office we’ve been working in for years. Remind clients of the standard they should be expecting, so the next time they have a medical appointment they know to look out for the badge. It may even be an awareness exercise if someone had no knowledge of registration of Interpreters in the first place and just ‘liked your signing’; the excuse most often heard from ‘signers’ parading themselves as ‘good Interpreters’.

What will it take for the profession to unite and stand up for ourselves? Mistakes happen, they have been occurring for years. Are we not a large enough group of professionals now to make more noise about it and stand up for ourselves, the people we serve and prevent any more of a reduction in access and standards for the Deaf community?

Bibi Lacey-Davidson

Chair of the Professional & Consumers Working Group, ASLI

Media Reports Chaos: Interpreters, Make Your Stand

In a previous post there was a description of the sheer number of spoken language organisations and campaigns and the resulting lack of unity. What is impressive now is the amount of interpreters taking a stand against the MoJ contract, whether individually or as part of these groups. The results of which have now started to filter down to the press with the rightful backlash causing chaos.

The ALS contract rolled out on 30^th January. In the last two weeks there has been report after report of mismanagement, cases being delayed, defendants held in custody overnight as there is no interpreter, court staff being harangued by ALS staff, Indian call centres not being able to fulfil requests. That’s a short summary of what has happened and these events have happened repeatedly around the country.

Before each roll out of a contract, whether it was NHS, Police (CPS) or courts, there would be a local press report detailing the horrific expense. The worst of it has been in the national press with the xenophobic Daily Mail amongst others asking why all the foreigners can’t just learn how to speak English?

We’ve seen what the government’s media machine has done to Disabled people, labelling them as benefit scroungers to the point where they have been attacked in the street.

A piece in The Evening Standard pointed out, ‘There is nothing wrong in stopping fraud or imposing cuts at a time of austerity. But it is revolting to see politicians and the media collude to target people who just want to join society.’ The same applies to those who need interpreters whether they are ‘foreigners’ or Deaf. We have an EU directive 2010/64/EU, the UNCRPD and specific to the UK the Equality Act 2010, all of which are being willfully ignored.

Disabled people are less likely to speak out just as users of interpreters can often not speak out, for obvious reasons. The provision of an untrained interpreter is hardly going to help. Would it be so cynical to suggest this is why these groups have been targeted by the government?

So in the case of this MoJ contract, it is left to the interpreters to make the first stand. Congratulations should go to those that have refused to work under the contract over the last few weeks. Lawyers, barristers, magistrates and judges are now seeing the effects. Where we had reports of the expense of interpreters, the media tide has turned. We now have reports of chaos with the Beeb and The Law Gazette picking up the news too.

Furthermore there have been postings on blogs by lawyers and magistrates about their concern.

The MoJ are sticking to the theory that these are just teething problems. They are not and this contract is costing the taxpayer more:

Cost to hold defendant for 24 hours in custody: £769

Average daily cost of a magistrate trial: £800

Average daily cost of a crown court trial: £1,700

(figures from The Daily Mail and The Guardian)

Justice is not cheap. When you introduce delays into the system costs escalate. Rather than paying £85-£150 (half day) for an interpreter so the case can be dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible, the actual cost starts to run into the thousands. What exactly is the chaos surrounding this contract?

• More than half of trained and registered interpreters have refused to work under the contract – most people ‘interpreting’ are not trained or NRPSI registered (in my view*).
• This has left some regions devoid of an interpreter – the agency is asking interpreters to travel further distances, which without travel costs many are refusing to do so.
• There are some language groups with no trained interpreters willing to work.
• Interpreters were asked to undergo a £100 assessment and CRB check – as so few did, the agency is now using ‘interpreters’ – speakers of other languages who have not undergone any interpreter training, have not been independently assessed (as promised) and have had no police checks (as promised).
• Agency staff have asked exasperated court staff, when a booking is not fulfilled, to enter a cancellation on their systems rather than a failure to provide – this will skew the monitoring information for the MoJ’s review of the contract or any future Freedom of Information requests made.
• There are reports of basic interpreter errors – ‘perversion of the course of justice’ becoming ‘charge of being a pervert’ and ‘charged by the police’ as owing the police money (BBC).

The above points show that the contract is not only nonsensical but also fundamentally wrong. It goes against legislation, against human rights. It has caused and will continue to cause delays, inefficiencies and extra cost to the taxpayer albeit hidden rather than included in the cost of the interpreting contract. There are huge risks being taken of a mistrial and a lack of access to justice. We have seen two weeks of chaos so far. The Sign Language Interpreting part of the contract is reported to be completely rolled out from March.

If you haven’t been affected yet, you will be. We saw what happened in the North West as a Procurement Hub was set up and later as part of this set up ALS took over interpreting services with police forces. Work disappeared for trained and registered interpreters, including sign language interpreters or was offered at a ridiculous and unsustainable rate. Work was taken up by those untrained and unregistered as the cheaper though unsafe option. Some interpreters had to leave the profession or take on second jobs to survive. One police force eventually terminated their contract with ALS as they could not carry out proper investigations.

As the contract and the chaos continues to roll out will you stand up for your profession? As a Sign language interpreter you may think you have been unaffected. You are wrong.

Reports are already coming out of an erosion of standards (there is evidence of interpreters booked for part trials/tribunals), there is a reduced cancellation fee (from 7 to 3 days) and you will effectively be contributing to the possible demise of the profession especially if you are not experienced in this type of work. SLIs have RSLI as standard. Don’t be fooled. Spoken Language ‘Interpreters’ did not even get assessed, it may only be a matter of time before this standard slips along with the others.

Rather than collude with the providers of this contract, whether you are being sub-contracted or not, like spoken language interpreters we should be sticking together and voting with our feet. If you don’t make this stand, you will see what happened in the North West coming to an area near you…

*added after threat of defamation from ALS, see comment.

Interpreter Cost Cutting: A False Economy

In these times of fiscal belt tightening funds have to be cut. It’s a given. For statutory bodies it must be hard. So where does the funding get cut and how can they save money?

Cut the stationery budget. There will be fewer pens. Don’t provide sandwiches at meetings. Staff and visitors will feed themselves. Take away the water cooler. There’s a tap.

Say you’re a nurse or a doctor within an NHS trust. Or you are staff in a local authority, the police or the courts. How about trying the following options. What would happen if you did?

Don’t provide an interpreter:

We know the US has a more litigious culture. Here’s what happened there:

Failure to use an interpreter ended in a $71m malpractice lawsuit in the U.S where a Latino boy was suspected to be a drug user but actually had a brain aneurism. A late diagnosis left him a paraplegic.

£400k was awarded to a Deaf woman who was not afforded an American Sign Language Interpreter and could not understand the side effects of her Lupus medication.

Last year, a Sheriff was sued for keeping a Deaf man in custody for 25 days without an interpreter.

What about here in the UK?

In 2004, Mr Tran Quang Tung died at Dungavel Immigration Removal Centre. He hung himself. There was a continued lack of interpreters used by doctors and other members of staff even though they could have done due to systems that were in place.

In summary, a professional is breaking their own code of conduct if they cannot communicate with their patient or service user. Guesswork does not amount to being able to care, treat or diagnose them. Crossing your fingers will not work either. Primum non nocere is the benchmark of medical ethics: “First, do no harm”. If you are court staff, justice is unlikely to be achieved. Local authorities, you are not filing your statutory duty.

Use an unqualified or unregistered interpreter:

It is quicker and cheaper to get someone who you think can do the job but is not qualified or registered. Perhaps use someone’s spouse or another member of family?

In 2000, in an A&E department, the wife of a profoundly Deaf man, Sarwat Al-Assaf, was used to interpret questions to her husband such as do you have thoughts of harming your wife or children? Mr Al-Assaf was suffering from severe mental illness. He later went on to kill his wife’s new partner.

Perhaps you get someone who says they have some sign language qualifications or in the case of a spoken language get in, say, the Polish-speaking porter.

One interpreter points out that “The English translation for the word ‘hit’ in Punjabi and Hindi is ‘maar’, but it also means ‘to kill’,” she explains. “So if I’m in court I have to ask the person: are you saying ‘I’m gonna hit you’, or ‘I’m gonna kill you’?” You don’t want to mess around with that distinction, whether it’s in court, for the local authority or a medical appointment.

Every registered interpreter has a tale of how there was an ‘interpreter’ booked but they got called in a week later to sort out the mess, usually to find out that the ‘interpreter’ was someone unregistered who took the payment because they could. It is obvious that in these cases, the service provider has to pay out more. Like getting in a cowboy builder, it ends up costing twice as much to get the mess sorted out afterwards.

It is illegal to employ an unregistered nurse or doctor who will not have to adhere to a Code of Ethics. It is not yet illegal for an unregistered ‘interpreter’ to work as one. Still, it stands to reason that if you use someone who is untrained and unregistered there is no legal recourse when it all backfires as it did in the cases above.

Commission an agency to do it for you:

Perhaps you are an NHS trust, a council or the MoJ and your commissioners are responsible for purchasing interpreting provision. In times of financial austerity, commissioners of services generally tend to care more about costs than quality. In that case, allow them to award an agency a contract or framework agreement with built in standards to ensure quality but ultimately, said agency will not follow them. The agency can not, as it is too costly to get in the appropriate practitioners, i.e. registered interpreters. In order to win the contract, they had to go in too low. The unit costs, if too cheap, can not add up to someone who does the job right and in a professional manner.

So what do you end up with? See the first two options. Rather than not providing the interpreter or getting in someone who is untrained and unregistered, the agency will be doing that instead. You’ll still be paying for it anyway. Freedom of Information requests show agencies are charging the cost of a registered interpreter but not necessarily providing one.

Not much of a cost saving then. Unless the commissioner chose a reputable agency. They normally charge more though so the likelihood is the statutory organisation or commissioner did not make that choice.

The Solution:

Pay for a trained and registered interpreter to:

Avoid – malpractice, misdiagnosis, wasted time, wasted cost orders, being sued and the distress of those to whom you are supposed to be providing a service.

Ensure – you are abiding by the code of ethics of your profession, you are providing the service you are supposed to, you are getting value for money, and you are able to complain or simply to trust that the proper communication is taking place.

How to save money:

Book and pay for a trained and registered interpreter.

How to check if an interpreter, from an agency or one that is booked direct, is registered:

Check the interpreter’s name against the lists held by NRPSI (spoken languages) or NRCPD (sign language). On their arrival ask to see their ID card.

These registers have been in existence for a while for good reason. Avoid the cowboy, avoid the lawsuit, avoid paying out twice.

Spoken Myths

Myths some, a small minority of, spoken language interpreters may hold about sign language interpreters:

Myth 1: We earn twice as much.

If only. Maybe we earn more some areas or for some contractors. Mostly we are facing reductions in fees just as you are. The large agency is king and is taking its cut more than ever. See previous post on One Stop Shopping.

Myth 2: We are known as Deaf or Deafblind interpreters.

No. There are Deaf (Relay) Interpreters and Intermediaries. They are often to be found working in courts and mental health. These are working interpreters who are Deaf. As native users of the language they are more adept at working with Deaf people who have additional communication needs and they work alongside Sign Language Interpreters. For more information see this article.

Myth 3: We are called BSLs.

No. You are not called Mandarins or Russians. You are interpreters as are we. A correct term would be Sign Language Interpreters. If you must shorten it SLIs would be better.

Myth 4: You are being discriminated against because in the MoJ contract we are being paid higher fees (well for now anyway). This is discrimination because we are mostly white and British and you are mostly not.

No. Well yes to the last part. But no. If I spoke Cantonese and I was white and got the job but you were Chinese and didn’t, that would be discrimination. But you are doing your job and I am doing mine, which is a confusingly different but yet similar. The fees were decided, in my understanding, on the basis of standards. I will come to this one next…

Myth 5: Spoken Language Interpreters have just as high standards of training etc.. as SLIs.

Really? It takes us 5 – 10 years to become fully qualified and registered. This can cost a minimum of £6,500. More if you came through the university route. This is mostly because we are not native users of the language and we have to take this long to become proficient. Plus there is the Level 4 or Postgrad training in interpreting to complete which takes a minimum of a year on top of all the language training.

This is not to say you don’t have these things. You have great skills and courses with the potential for study at MA level and doctorates. The whole standards thing boils down to the minimum requirement needed to interpret for a public service and the perception of this by the authorities. The minimums for NRPSI registration take less time to study for, partly because you are already fluent in the language. This is unfortunately seen as lower standards and this has been used against you. Which brings me nicely to my last point.

Myth 6: We look down at you.

A categorical no. I have the utmost respect for you. I have marvelled at stories of your stamina in court where there has been one of you for a whole day and we normally have two interpreters working together. We normally have an interpreter working for defence barristers and separate ones for the court to avoid conflicts of interest. I have heard stories of you having to do both. I am not sure this is physically possible.

So let us talk Truths…

Truth 1: We have all been shafted. The contract has gone to… well we all know don’t we. They have effectively ripped up the NRPSI and the National Agreement. Standards and quality have now gone out of the window on the basis of saving costs.

Truth 2: You got shafted again. In order to register for the aforementioned agency you have to pay £100 for an assessment even though technically you have already been assessed. Correct me if I am wrong. Rumour has it there has been a reduction in price as not enough interpreters signed up for it. Not surprised. I love your ‘Say no…’ campaign. Over half of NRPSI interpreters won’t work for them. I shudder to think at who they will get to work. I know. Perhaps one of the legal clerks who happens to know a bit of Gujarati? Well that will see justice done.

Truth 3: The media are not helping. All this talk of interpreter costs and how bad it all is really does take away from the bankers and their continued fat bonuses, doesn’t it? If only the FSA had some muscle. Anyway…

Truth 4: We really all should be working together rather than finger pointing and laying blame. When we do, it works really well. I’ve seen the questions in Parliament. I know it can be done. And there is strength in numbers. So can we all please dispel these myths and look at the truths? Stop wasting cash on expensive legal fees for Judicial Reviews (unless they are founded). Stop setting up alternative organisations. Stop blaming and let’s all please do a bit more work together.

One Stop Shopping

Outsourcing or One Stop Shops. Words that strike fear into the heart of the Sign Language Interpreter. A word that means the work that they previously did direct or though one agency for a council, a hospital or a court now has to go through a larger spoken language agency.

This seems nonsensical to the jobbing interpreter, but ultimately makes sense to the statutory organisation. The logic or process goes like this: we use many interpreters for many different languages. British Sign Language (BSL) is a language. Our staff do not know how to book interpreters so we will employ an organisation who can do this for us. We will save money by employing an agency to cover our interpretation and translation needs (which will include those difficult to source sign language interpreters)…

We will go through a lengthy procurement process where agencies will try to outbid each other to win a contract at a unit price that is ultimately unsustainable. Organisation will expect said agencies to put something in their tender about quality but really it is tokenism for we will only be awarding a contract on the basis of costs. We will award contract to cheapest provider regardless…

Spoken language agency will not understand how to source a BSL interpreter and will sub-contract a specialist agency. They will think they can pay BSL interpreter the same as a spoken language interpreter and when they start the contract will get a big shock. Specialist BSL agency eventually agrees to reduced price sub-contract as all previous work they did is now being outsourced to spoken language agencies who have little understanding of deaf people and BSL interpreters. Specialist BSL agency still wants to survive in market where they get less work. BSL agency asks BSL interpreter to work for less fees. BSL interpreter, if accepting fees, finds they are working for a lot less than before. BSL interpreter is then providing profit for two separate contracts. BSL interpreter considers leaving the profession as they can not survive as an interpreter and must consider another career. Deaf people get less experienced and maybe unregistered interpreters as a result.

Time for a real life example… One of the biggest culprits is Language Empire and Remark Interpreting. Language Empire has a contract to provide interpreting for ATOS. ATOS has the contract for the Government’s Department of Work and Pensions medical assessments. ATOS carry out assessments to decide if the claimant should be allowed incapacity benefit or if they are fit to work. There are problems for disabled people in general with these assessments. MPs themselves have stated the assessments are flawed. The ATOS machine rumbles on… so who do they employ to do the interpreting? Language Empire. An agency who is so ignorant of BSL it calls it British Special Language. The images of hands on its ‘BSL’ page are not of any recognisable signs and they state they have ‘special disability interpreters’. Nobody actually knows what this means. Their webpage has caused BSL interpreters much mirth but complete dismay at their ignorance.

The worst is yet to come. A deaf-led agency has now started to sub-contract for Language Empire. At least the RNID (now Action on Hearing Loss) when sub-contracting for The Big Word stood up for BSL interpreters and helped The Big Word understand the BSL interpreting profession. This organisation has done nothing for interpreters or the deaf community it proposes to serve. They continue to try to source BSL interpreters at greatly reduced cost for what it’s contractors call British Special Language. This particular agency states one of their aims as supporting and enhancing the lives of Deaf, hard of hearing and blind individuals.’ I don’t think so.

Meanwhile we hear of regular reports of yet another council, organisation or government department outsourcing or looking for a ‘one stop shop’. When the agency is not reputable, the cost to the organisation generally remains the same but the quality drops off. With BSL usually representing something around 2% of a contract, the interpreter or deaf person loses out. What used to cost an organisation £100 – £160 per booking average direct, now costs the same or worse (Freedom of Information requests by interpreters show this to be the case due to sub-contracting).

The fact costs have barely been saved is not important. It’s the ramifications to the profession and subsequently deaf people that matters. Spoken language agencies generally do not understand the NRCPD registration system for sign language interpreters. These agencies are more likely to employ someone with level 1 or 2 in sign language (equivalent to a GCSE or A Level in French) thinking this is acceptable. It may be if we were native BSL users but as interpreters, by the nature of the job, we are mostly people that can hear, and we tend to have English as our first language. Therefore, most people with a basic qualification in BSL do not have enough fluency to interpret anything but someone buying a cup of coffee much less a medical appointment. Would you try to interpret consent for an operation to a French man if you had GCSE French?

Every qualified registered interpreter has been to an appointment where the deaf person said but that’s not what the interpreter said last week. Take the case recently of an elderly deaf man who thought he was having a minor operation on his shoulder. The hospital had provided an ‘interpreter’ the week before to sign the consent forms. When the registered interpreter arrived a week later the patient was shocked to discover he would be having a a major operation that day under general anaesthetic. What will it take to stop this… A malpractice lawsuit? A death? Rumour has it that already happened but unless someone actually does anything about it, the government outsourcing machine continues, the big agencies profit and deaf people lose out.

An Anonymous Introduction

There are many reasons for starting this blog. I’m a Sign Language Interpreter in the UK and part of a profession that is currently experiencing many difficulties. We are faced with changing market forces, the long-standing ignorance of why interpreters are necessary and statutory organisations, whose main concern, in this current economic climate, is to cut costs rather than look at equality or value for money.

This blog seeks to address some of the misinformation about Sign Language Interpreting in the UK by giving interpreters a way to air their views publicly but anonymously. We are bound by a Code of Conduct in our day-to-day work. It is right that we are but sometimes we may feel we can not speak out. We can post on public forums but may leave ourselves open to criticism and personal attack. Interpreters Anonymous provides a way for people to post opinion pieces to air these conversations and opinions we wish to be made public without fear of recrimination.

If you would like to write a guest post please send an email to interpreteranon@gmail.com. Your post will be considered in the strictest confidence and published anonymously. See the disclaimer page for the policy on guest blogs and comments.

Any opinions expressed are solely those of the blog post author and do not represent the views of any organization that the post author is affiliated with or with the opinions of any other author who publishes on this blog. For blog disclaimer and comment policy see the separate disclaimer page.