Court interpreting fiasco – the Minister responds
At the weekend I wrote about Baroness Coussins‘ oral question in the House of Lords on the fiasco otherwise known as Capita’s contract with the Ministry of Justice for the provision of court interpreting services (posts passim).
Hansard has now published the answer from government minister Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, as well as Baroness Coussins’ supplementary question and a follow-up question from Labour Peer Lord Harrison:
Baroness Coussins: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: My Lords, performance under the language services contract with Capita is measured by agreed indicators, including the success rate for bookings. I am pleased to report that this improved from 66.5% to 95.3% between February and August 2012. Complaints during this period also fell significantly. The National Audit Office recommended that the Ministry of Justice obtained independent advice on quality standards under the contract and I am pleased to report that the Minister has already met umbrella interpreter organisations in this respect.
Baroness Coussins: My Lords, I am delighted that constructive talks are finally taking place with the professional bodies following the damning reports from the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee. However, is the noble Lord aware that the success figure of 95% that he gives excludes the large number of short-notice requests from the courts, which would bring the fulfilment rate down to more like 56%? In any case, that figure tells us nothing about the competence of the interpreters who do turn up. Will the Government now agree to conduct a thorough, independent inspection of the service so that the quality of service can be improved and the number of properly qualified interpreters who are willing to work for Capita can be significantly increased?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: The noble Baroness makes a valid point about short-notice bookings. In that respect, it is true that bookings for hearings with less than 24 hours’ notice were temporarily descoped from the contract in mid-February and the courts and tribunals reverted to previous arrangements. However, I can report to the House that a pilot to return these bookings has begun in selected criminal courts across England and Wales and will be phased back across regions and jurisdictions when the project board has continued confidence in performance.
Turning to the competence and qualifications of interpreters, the new contract allows for an increased range of acceptable qualifications and experience. Under the contract, all foreign language interpreters must show evidence that they have the required qualifications before they can undertake assignments. We have a tiering facility and all courts are encouraged to ensure that interpreters are qualified to tier 1 or tier 2 for all bookings unless otherwise agreed with the court or tribunal.
Lord Harrison: My Lords, there was also a requirement by the National Audit Office to ensure evaluation of the incentives provided for professionally qualified linguists, interpreters and translators that would encourage them back to the courts to work. What is being done on that score?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: My Lords, all the National Audit Office recommendations have been taken on board and are being fully looked at and implemented.
It would appear that Ministry of Justice civil servants and ministers still believe against all the evidence that the system is working well, even though the Chair of the House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, Margaret Hodge MP, recently described the affair as: “An object lesson in how not to contract out a public service” (posts passim).