Steve Woods

Campaign group Professional Interpreters for Justice has condemned Justice Minister Helen Grant’s glib response to the scathing report published by the Justice Select Committee (JSC) this week (posts passim).

The report, which described the Ministry of Justice’s outsourcing of court language services as “nothing short of shambolic”, concluded that performance figures for the contract are likely to represent a “significant overestimate” and “clearly do not reflect the company’s fulfilment against 100% of the requirements of HMCTS and should be altered, retrospectively and in the future, to indicate this”.

Despite this, Justice Minister Helen Grant continues to insist that while there had been “significant” issues at the start of the contract last year, “swift and robust action” has led to “dramatic improvements”.

Commenting on the report she said: “The vast majority of interpreter bookings are now being completed and complaints have fallen considerably. The changes we have made have led to major savings for taxpayers, totalling £15 mn. in the first year and we continue to monitor the contract on a daily basis and demand continuing progress.”

Professional Interpreters for Justice (PI4J) has repeatedly rejected the misleading and unverified figures published by the Ministry and asserts that the MoJ has deliberately given the wrong picture about its contractor’s performance. Independent calculations estimate that the performance figure for the contract is nearer 50%* rather than the Minister’s publicly stated figure of 95% (16th January) and that fulfilment of the Framework Agreement, which has a total potential value of up to £42 mn. per annum, is currently at just 20%.

Keith Moffitt, Chair of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, representing PI4J says: If the Minister, as she has stated, wants to work “effectively and positively” with the interpreting community to develop a system that meets the needs of the justice sector, then she must take the report’s findings seriously. This continued repetition of misleading and inaccurate figures is not helping and there is a real risk of the legal interpreter profession collapsing altogether”.

Nick Rosenthal, Chair of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI), who gave evidence at the JSC hearing (23 Oct) added: “We have told the Minister that in order to continue the discussions with us about improving quality in court interpreting, there needs to be recognition that the quality issues are a result of the system which uses a single private contractor and that alternative models must be considered”.

PI4J is calling for the Minister to revert immediately to the previous National Agreement arrangement under which qualified interpreters were sourced using the NRPSI. The value of the National Register was endorsed by the Justice Committee’s report in its conclusions and recommendations (no.4), which states: “there do not appear to have been any fundamental problems with the quality of services where they were properly sourced i.e. through arrangements that were underpinned by the National Register of Public Service Interpreters.”

Instances of interpreter “no shows” and poor quality interpreting at courts and police stations across the UK are still being reported at an alarming rate. Just this week a trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court collapsed (7th February) due to disputed interpreting by a Sylheti (Bangladeshi) linguist, resulting in Judge Joana Korner CMG QC specifically instructing the Crown Prosecution Service not to “hire any interpreters in future who are not on the National Register”.

Geoffrey Buckingham, Chairman, Association of Police and Court Interpreters (APCI), concludes: “The Framework Agreement and the contract with Capita do not work and never will. The Ministry of Justice was determined to push this through in the face of overwhelming evidence that it would reduce the quality of language services. This failed delivery model must be abandoned and replaced by arrangements that ensure justice can be delivered consistently through the use of properly qualified professional interpreters.”

Finally, PI4J is awaiting a reply from the Justice Minister to a letter sent on 22nd January criticising Helen Grant’s use of statistics.

The long-awaited report from the Justice Committee, a House of Commons select committee, has now been published. The committee’s inquiry found that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) pushed ahead with outsourcing court interpreter services despite warnings that the quality of court language services would be reduced.

Evidence presented to the committee strongly suggests that the MoJ did not have a sufficient understanding of the complexities of court interpreting work. Prior to the award of the court interpreting contract to Applied Language Solutions (ALS) the MoJ’s consultation revealed significant concern that quality standards could be reduced by the imposition of a tiered system to enable a wider pool of interpreters and by the introduction of lower pay levels. However, the MoJ pushed ahead with the contract and failed to anticipate or address the potential for problems with ALS’ capacity to deliver what it promised.

When Capita acquired ALS for £7.5m in December 2011 and began providing interpreting and translation services to HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) in January 2012, it faced immediate operational difficulties. ALS/Capita have been unable to recruit enough qualified and experienced interpreters, resulting in availability and quality reductions in court and tribunal interpreting services.

The situation has been exacerbated due to a widespread boycott of the new arrangements by professional interpreters. Capita/ALS clearly needed significantly more resources than it had to provide the service to the required standard. The company also paid lip service to the regulatory duties accepted under the framework agreement with the MoJ, but did not have the capacity to cope with complaints or to implement basic vetting procedures.

According to the committee, the most important priority is for the MoJ and Capita to prove that the framework agreement is capable of attracting, retaining and deploying an adequate number of qualified and competent interpreters to meet the requirements of the courts and tribunals.

The Committee has also condemned actions taken by MoJ which had hampered its inquiry. HMCTS issued an edict to its staff instructing them not to participate in the Committee’s online consultation, established to invite direct observations from front-line staff of the performance of ALS. The committee considers that the ministry’s actions may have constituted a contempt of the House, but has insufficient evidence of this from other sources to make a reliable judgement.

Commenting of the report the Chair of the Committee, Sir Alan Beith MP, said:

The Ministry of Justice’s handling of the outsourcing of court interpreting services has been nothing short of shambolic. It did not have an adequate understanding of the needs of courts; it failed to heed warnings from the professionals concerned and it did not put sufficient safeguards in place to prevent interruptions in the provision of quality interpreting services to courts.

The select committee’s report is available in both HTML (read online) and PDF versions.

This makes the justice committee the second parliamentary committee to condemn the way the MoJ handled the outsourcing of court interpreting after the Public Accounts Committee’s Chair, Margaret Hodge MP, described the process as “an object lesson in how not to contract out a public service” on the publication of her committee’s report (posts passim).