Politics | Steve Woods

Capita T&I attempts sub-contracting to fulfil MoJ contract

21/10/2013 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

Sub-contracting is quite common in the language business. Every week or two I’ll do a job for an agency that’s been placed with them by another (usually larger) agency.

This seems to go all the way to the top and is not confined to translation: interpreting jobs also get sub-contracted.

As regards interpreting, RPSI Linguist Lounge last week published a post written by Oskar offering evidence that Capita Translation & Interpreting are also playing the same game to attempt to meet their contractual obligations to the Ministry of Justice under the framework agreement for interpreting services for courts and tribunals. Oskar’s words are reproduced in full below.

I did some private work for solicitors last week at Uxbridge Magistrates Court. I spoke to a Romanian interpreter from thebigword. It seems that C-ta are unable to fulfil their contractual obligations, so courts are trying to call other agencies. On several occasions I was told by interpreters working outside of London that in several counties – Cambs, Notts, Northants, courts revert to calling other agencies or small/local agencies were approached by C-ta and asked to subcontract their interpreters in several languages. With regard to their so-called tier system, I have been advised that for NHS bookings they send people classified as Tier 4, what’s next then: a proverbial cleaning lady, mind you, these ladies are better paid and promptly as well. Who is behind upholding this unprofitable, undermanned and badly managed contract? Why aren’t SOCA or other LEA investigating it already?
PI4J survey

16/10/2013 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

Professional Interpreters for Justice (PI4J), the umbrella group for interpreter organisations, has been campaigning since 2011 against the Ministry of Justice’s Framework Agreement and outsourcing of criminal justice interpreting to Capita Translation & Interpreting (formerly Applied Language Solutions/ALS).

PI4J, in conjunction with Involvis, has just launched an online survey for interpreters (its fourth. Ed.) and, as well as hearing from interpreters about their current situation and thoughts about the future, also wants to hear interpreters’ views about PI4J and how they see its role. Should PI4J continue and if so, what is its primary role?

The Capita T&I contract ends in October 2016 but re-tendering will begin much sooner and PI4J’s focus needs to be on what happens next.

The survey will be open for responses until 10pm on Sunday 20th October 2013.

Take the survey.
Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region to save €2 mn. with OpenOffice

15/10/2013 Steve WoodsOpen Source, Open Standards, Politics, Tech

The administration of the Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region will switch to the open source OpenOffice productivity suite, Joinup reports. It thus hopes to save some €2 mn. euro on the licences that it would have spent for updating the ubiquitous MS Office suite. To prepare the migration, a three-month pilot involving 300 workstations has started at the region’s Directorate-General for Agriculture; all other regional departments will switch over to OpenOffice by the end of 2014. The region employs some 3,545 office staff.

The region is currently using a ten year-old version of MS Office. Instead of spending €2 mn. to upgrade 3,200 proprietary licences that are due to expire next year, the province decided to switch to OpenOffice which “offers basically the same functionality”.

The region has set aside a budget of €220,000 for the switch to OpenOffice; this budget includes a staff training element.
Remembering the Real WW1

13/10/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

On Tuesday 15th October, Bristol Radical History Group and Bristol Stop the War Coalition are jointly organising a public meeting entitled Remembering the Real WW1 at the Hydra Bookshop, 34 Old Market St, Bristol, BS2 0EZ (map). The event starts at 7.00 pm and entry is free, although there’ll probably be a whip-round for donations. More details here.

The talk is being organised in advance of next year’s centenary of the start of World War 1, for which The British government plans to spend £55 million marking the occasion (and the centenary of other stages of the war). Comments from Prime Minister David Cameron calling for a ‘truly national commemoration’ stressing our ‘national spirit’ already suggest what he has in mind. He has even compared the government’s plans with last year’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

What Cameron is forgetting is a phrase that I recall from 40 years ago this month, when I had just started doing political science as part of my Modern Languages degree, i.e. ‘war is the destruction of the fittest’. Indeed, the First World War is credited with being the first war in history where slaughter was conducted on an industrial scale due to advances in technology. In the Battle of the Somme alone (1st July-18th November 1916) claimed more 1,000,000 casualties, making it one of the bloodiest battles in the history of mankind.

German dead at Guillemont, September 1916. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

For the majority of people in Europe, whether or not they were directly involved, WW1 was one of the twentieth century’s greatest disasters (and one whose repercussions are still being felt in international relations. Ed.). Already historians like Max Hastings have begun to argue that this was a war that had to be fought against German militarism and the costs in human life and destruction were worth paying. In contrast, radical historians have begun to uncover a multitude of both individual and mass forms of resistance to the war on all sides of the national divides. This resistance took the form of desertion, fraternisation, strikes and mutinies.

Like most families, members of my own were involved in the conflict. Ted, my paternal grandfather was involved in the Gallipoli campaign, which by itself claimed 34,072 British dead and 78,520 wounded. On my mother’s side, my grandfather Alfred was rejected for military service on medical grounds, although my Auntie Doris informed me in a letter that one of Alfred’s brothers – whose name I cannot remember – deserted in France and was never heard from again by the family.

Those British service personnel who survived the conflict were promised a ‘country fit for heroes to live in’ by ‘Welsh Wizard’ David Lloyd George‘s postwar government. They were sadly let down.
An apposite typo?

10/10/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities, Politics

I’m not a regular reader of the minutes of meetings of Bristol City Council’s Audit Committee. However, there’s an absolute corker of a typographical error on page 3 of the draft minutes of its 24th September 2013 meeting (PDF).

Will anyone down at the Counts Louse (as real Bristolians call or) or City Hall (as the Mayor has renamed it) be eagle-eyed enough to notice?

Under no circumstances Lord Fraud should not be confused with Lord Freud, a Conservative peer who only pretends to be a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions with responsibility for welfare reform. 😉
BRH’s autumn programme announced

08/10/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Bristol Radical History Group have announced their autumn programme of talks, gigs and meetings. Full details can be found at http://www.brh.org.uk/site/events/.

The events themselves are as follows:

‘We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the drains’: An alternative explanation of the public debt

Speaker: Alan Brown
Date: Wednesday 9th October
Time: 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Venue: The Hydra Bookshop, 34 Old Market St, Bristol, BS2 0EZ (map)
Price: Donation
http://www.brh.org.uk/site/events/we-are-all-in-the-gutter/

Remembering the Real WWI: Public meeting

Date: Tuesday 15th October 2013
Time: 7.00-9.00pm
Venue: The Hydra Bookshop, 34 Old Market St, Bristol, BS2 0EZ
Price: Free
http://www.brh.org.uk/site/events/remembering-real-wwi-public-meeting/

The Black Revolution

Speakers: Jonina Abron-Ervin & Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin
Date: Wednesday 16th October 2013
Time: 7.00pm
Venue: Malcolm X Centre, 141 City Rd, Bristol, BS2 8YH (map)
Price: Donation
http://www.brh.org.uk/site/events/black-revolution/

Global Revolts and Uprisings

Speakers: George Katsiaficas and Geronimo
Date: Thursday 17th October, 2013
Time: 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Venue: The Hydra Bookshop 34 Old Market St, Bristol, BS2 0EZ
Price: Donation
http://www.brh.org.uk/site/events/global-revolts-uprisings/

Justseeds, Radical Art: Exhibition and discussion

Speakers: Justseeds Art Collective (New York)
Date: Tuesday 22nd October 2013
Time: 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Venue: The Hydra Bookshop, 34 Old Market St, Bristol, BS2 0EZ
Price: Donation
http://www.brh.org.uk/site/events/just-seeds-radical-art-group/

James Connolly Songs of Freedom with Mat Callahan, Clayton Blizzard and Commander McNeil

Date: Wednesday 23rd October 2013
Time: 8.00 pm til late
Venue: The Plough, 223 Easton Rd, Easton, Bristol BS5 0EG ‎(map)
Price: TBC
http://www.brh.org.uk/site/events/james-connolly-songs-freedom/

Remembering the Dublin Lockout 1913-2013

Speaker: John Newsinger
Date: Thursday 14th November 2013
Time: 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Venue: Tony Benn House, Victoria Street, Bristol BS1 6AY (map)
Price: Donation
http://www.brh.org.uk/site/events/remembering-dublin-lockout-1913-2013/

Book Launch: In Letters of Blood and Fire: Work, Machines and the Crisis of Capitalism

Speaker: George Caffentzis
Date: Tuesday 19th November 2013
Time: 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Venue: The Hydra Bookshop, 34 Old Market St, Bristol, BS2 0EZ
Price: Donation
http://www.brh.org.uk/site/events/in-letters-of-blood-and-fire/
Fundraiser for Felix Road tomorrow

04/10/2013 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Tomorrow (5th October) the City Academy in Russell Town Avenue (map) will be holding a free community event from 12.00 noon to 4.00 pm. All proceeds from the event will be going to the campaign to save Felix Road Adventure Playground (posts passim), which is threatened with closure.

There will be live music & performances, food, an active zone including bouncy castle & soft play and face painting.

For further information contact Ananda Kellett by email on kelleta (at) cityacademy.bristol.sch.uk or telephone 0117 9413800.
Berlin geodata now available free of charge

02/10/2013 Steve WoodsOpen Data, Politics, Tech

The official geodata of the Berlin Land Surveying Administration are now available free of charge, Heise reports. The data, such as the automated property register map, topographical official map series, aerial photographs and rectified digital photographs derived from these and information about standard land values, may be used for any commercial or non-commercial purpose according to a notice from Berlin’s Senate Administration for City Development & the Environment. The data can be acquired from the geodata portal.

The previous complex terms of use have been abolished and replaced by new uniform terms of use, which permit commercial and non-commercial use of the data free of charge. Modest charges are levied for the provision of data that can only be made available offline. Fees are still charged for official information and extracts from the land register, as well as for permits and certifications.

“Social topics relevant to the future such as climate, energy, mobility or demography are dependent on geodata. Berlin’s implementation of its open data initiative is being continued with the release of official geodata and an important contribution being made to the continuing opening up of the State,” explains Ephraim Gothe, State Secretary for Urban Development and the Environment.

Mathias Schindler of Wikimedia Deutschland sees the move as a small revolution. “In particular, the (meta)data may be copied, printed out, used in presentations, processed and passed on to third parties, merged with one’s own or others’ data, associated with independent data sets and integrated in internal and external business processes and applications in public and non-public electronic networks – all with a source attribution obligation”, he explains in a blog post.

The Berlin Senate published its open data strategy in February 2012. It set up its open data portal – the first in Germany in April 2012.
French government guiding public sector towards open data

20/09/2013 Steve WoodsOpen Data, Politics, Tech

The French Prime Minister has just distributed a circular promoting the opening up of public data, according to Le Monde Informatique. This was accompanied by a practical guide to assist public sector organisations in joining in this move.

The “Vade-mecum sur l’ouverture et le partage des données publiques” (= Handbook on opening up and sharing public data) was published on 17th September 2013 by the Prime Minister’s office. Originating from the CIMAP (inter-ministerial committee for public [sector] activity modernisation) meeting of 2nd April 2013, the handbook has the aim of encouraging the public sector to open up their data fully by encouraging it to do so. At just 11 pages, the document is very short. It is also based on a provision in the ethical charter signed by each minister of the present French government upon entering office and which makes provision for opening up the data of each ministry as fully as possible.
It also gives a reminder that open data should be referred to on the data.gouv.fr portal. This portal currently hosts 350,000 files according to the Prime Minister’s office.

After having given a reminder of the issues and objective of opening up public data, the handbook sets out the legal forms for so doing, along with the methods and good practice. It concludes by setting out possible examples of the re-use of open public data.
Is there a backdoor in Linux?

20/09/2013 Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Politics, Tech

Linus Torvalds ponders answering another awkward question
At this year’s LinuxCon held in New Orleans, Linus Torvalds and fellow kernel developers were asked whether they’d been approached by US security services to put a backdoor in Linux, thus compromising the operating system’s security, The Register reports.

Linus responded to the question by saying no whilst at the same time nodding his head, thus indicating that he had been approached. He then resumed by completely denying any approach had been made. This was followed by another developer saying that such things couldn’t be discussed. Linus’ reaction is reminiscent of the reserve Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, on the NSA‘s Prism programme because any mention of it could be “treason”.

Rumours of backdoors and other forms of hidden access routes in operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and security protection products have been in circulation for years. These rumours have been given a fresh lease of life following the recent revelations by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Linus’ and the other developers answers have not exactly cleared the air as to whether Linux is as secure an operating system as its users are likely to believe. As The Register article points out:

Worried netizens have become far more paranoid about the possibility of backdoors in the technology they use and this paranoia extends to both closed-source and open-source software.

However, it is pointed out by The Register that security service agents who are rebuffed by developers then tend to leave them alone.

Finally, there’s one point to consider: in open source anyone with the requisite skill is free to examine the code, modify and adapt it. On that principle, wouldn’t it therefore be more difficult to hide vulnerabilities and backdoors in open source products than closed, proprietary software?