Steve Woods

Last June the British government introduced plans to shake up Whitehall with the aim of making the civil service smaller, less bureaucratic, faster and more accountable.

Yesterday senior mandarins reported to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on progress to date. However, PAC Chair Margaret Hodge MP expressed concern that within the Civil Service failure frequently went unpunished, stating:

“The mood out there is all too often people in the Civil Service don’t get held to account for performance and may get rewarded for failure; and most recently we saw the Home Affairs Select Committee report on UKBA where the head of UKBA – and this is no [sic] personal; it’s not for me to judge, but just hearing what Home Affairs Select Committee did – the head of UKBA was found more than wanting and they expressed surprise that she’d then been given the stewardship of HMRC. Now for the public that doesn’t establish great confidence.

Margaret Hodge later listed some of the more spectacular failures in Whitehall’s record of contracting out public services:

I remember the West Coast main line; that was a fiasco. I remember the MoJ interpreters’ contract; that was a fiasco in the MoJ. I’m afraid the DWP – you may think they’re improving – we think that the way they’ve handled the contracts on the Work Programme has been less than satisfactory.

For the benefit of Ministry of Justice mandarins and Capita Translation & Interpreting, the dictionary definition of a fiasco is “a complete failure, especially one that is ignominious or humiliating“. 🙂

Hat tip: Geoffrey Buckingham

At the end of last week, the New Law Journal carried an interesting report on the case of R. v. Applied Language Solutions. Applied Language Solutions is better known nowadays as Capita Translation & Interpreting, the not very competent custodians of the Ministry of Justice’s contract for providing interpreting services for courts and tribunals.

R. v. Applied Language Solutions itself concerned a disputed costs order for £23.25 imposed ALS it after a Slovakian interpreter arrived late at Sheffield Crown Court due to a communications mix-up.

However, what is of interest are the remarks of the judge, the President of the Queen’s Bench Division, Sir John Thomas, who expressed surprise at Capita Translation and Interpreting Ltd’s argument that it need only supply court interpreters on time and in the right place 98% of the time to fulfil its contractual obligations. Bear in mind at this point that 98% is the performance target set for the contract by the Ministry of Justice – a target that Capita has never even met once during the first 12 months of the contract (posts passim).

Delivering his judgment, Sir John said: “We cannot accept this argument…without [an interpreter] a case cannot proceed. It seems to us inconceivable that the Ministry of Justice would have entered into a contract where the obligation… was framed in any terms other than an absolute obligation. It is simply no use to a court having an interpreter there on 98% of occasions when interpreters are required, because if an interpreter is required justice cannot be done without one and a case cannot proceed.”

Sir John, the third most senior judge in England and Wales, evidently has more faith in the Ministry of Justice than some of us; it may be inconceivable to him that it entered into a contract with a percentage obligation, but that’s what it’s done.

Furthermore, Sir John would seem to have an absolutist view of the efficient administration of justice, first mentioned in Magna Carta to the effect that: “To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice.” This principle was of course conveniently forgotten by the Ministry of Justice when concluding the ALS/Capita interpreting contract (posts passim).