Yesterday afternoon, members of Parliament held a debate in Westminster Hall on the continuing disaster that is the Ministry of Justice’s contract with Capita for interpreting services in courts and tribunals in England and Wales (posts passim).

Hansard has the full transcript of the debate, which is worth a quick skim – if nothing else – if one’s pressed for time.

In my reading of the proceedings, I have so far not found a single MP who spoke in favour of the current arrangements with Capita. A selection of their criticisms follows.

Firstly, Andy McDonald asking a question of Sir Alan Beith and drawing attention to the MoJ’s equally daft proposals for legal aid (posts passim).

Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern that we are hearing from people, such as the chairman of the Bar Council, about the significant costs and money wasted when trials collapse because of failures under the terms of the contract? Does he share my view that perhaps we would be better served if we considered saving those costs, rather than embarking on a revolution in legal aid provision and putting all that at risk again?

Next Alan Johnson, a former Home Secretary.

As a former Minister, I have been at the rough end of several Select Committee reports in my time, but I have never known three reports —t he National Audit Office memorandum, the Public Accounts Committee report and now the Justice Committee’s report — to be so consistent in their condemnation of a Government policy. A number of conclusions can be drawn from those reports. First, there were no fundamental problems with the original procedures. Secondly, the Ministry of Justice changed those procedures without understanding their complexities, or indeed the professionalism of the people providing the services. This is a caricature, but it seems that someone who knows a bit of holiday Spanish can now come in and do a job in the courts, which has proved to be disastrous. Thirdly, the MOJ awarded the contract to a company, ALS, that is totally incapable of fulfilling its requirements. Surely there can be little doubt about that. I do not think there are many people in this debate who will be arguing on the Government’s side, apart from the poor Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant).

The final conclusion is that justice and the right to a fair trial have been seriously compromised as a result of this debacle.

Thirdly, John Leech.

In a nutshell, the system was not broken. The MOJ was warned that its proposals would cause problems, which certainly proved to be the case. When the Select Committee decided to investigate, the MoJ tried to stop staff from assisting the inquiry. Frankly, that is not good enough.

…

We are not only talking about money; we must not forget justice and access to justice. In giving evidence, Mr Atkinson of the Law Society stated that while miscarriages of justice would occur infrequently, they were possible. Even one miscarriage of justice is one too many, but perhaps more concerning was his comment that “people are spending time in custody for no reason other than the lack of an interpreter.”

I could continue in this vein for some time, but will draw to a close with the words of Sir Gerald Kaufman.

All the available information shows that the system is not only failing abjectly, but damaging seriously the administration of justice in this country. In addition, it is costing the taxpayer huge sums of money in abandoned trials and in other ways.

My reading so far reveals not a single MP who spoke stood up for the Ministry of Justice and its failing contract with Capita.

That job fell to Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice Helen Grant MP, who was clearly well out of her depth and clung for support to the briefing note prepared by the MoJ’s civil servants and repeated the same misleading statements that had previously been parroted 3 weeks ago in the House of Lords by Lord McNally (posts passim).

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Pritchard. I genuinely welcome the opportunity to listen to the debate. I shall do my very best to respond to the issues raised today and to the important report of the Justice Committee.

I would like to affirm my Department’s appreciation of the services provided to the justice system by interpreters, many of whom I can see in the Chamber today. They ensure fairness in courts and tribunals; they encourage confidence in the justice system; and they are a vital part of the service that is provided. It is well known, however, that the old system was not ideal. It was inefficient, inadequate and did not provide good value for money. Those issues were noted by the National Audit Office in its report. The new contract and framework agreement were developed to address, as far as possible, those inadequacies. The reality is that we could no longer afford to reward people in a way that bore no relation to the levels of work that they carried out. The National Audit Office recognised that important reality, too.

Remuneration now more closely reflects the work being undertaken and is more closely aligned to the rates on offer for similarly qualified people in other public services. We do not deny that there were teething problems during the early stages of the new contract, and as the Ministry said in its response to the Justice Committee’s report, the initial performance was not satisfactory. Contingency plans were put in place quickly and had a direct effect. Disruption was kept to a minimum; we pushed Capita to improve matters urgently; and there was a significant outlay of investment on its part to improve services.

In the year 30 January 2012 to 31 January 2013, there were more than 131,000 requests for language services, covering 259 different languages, and the overall success rate was at 90%. That is a significant improvement on the 67% successful booking rate in February 2012. The number of complaints received, as against the number of bookings made, has fallen significantly. From February 2012 to August 2012, complaints fell from 10.6% to 1.7% in criminal courts; from 6.3% to 0.8% in civil and family courts; and from 19.2% to 5.6% in tribunals.

We take our responsibilities seriously, and we have ensured that each complaint is investigated. As has been said during the debate, lessons must be learned. I can assure hon. Members that lessons truly are being learned.

The above is only a sample of Helen Grant’s contribution to the debate. However, it is not difficult to picture her sat in Petty France with her hands over her ears ignoring the warnings of doom coming from all quarters and making a loud noise to attempt to drown out all voices that contradict the view of the world which she has been told to accept by her mandarins.

Last Thursday’s This is Total Essex website reported yet another interpreter failing to turn up – this time for a case being heard at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court.

A CHEF who accepted a mobile phone after it was stolen in a house burglary has been charged with receiving stolen goods.

Humayoune Elu, 36, of Duke Street, Chelmsford, first appeared in Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court on Monday but will have to return because he is awaiting assistance from a Bengalese-speaking interpreter.

I’ll forgive the hapless hack for ‘Bengalese’ (it should be Bengali. Ed.), but how much longer can Capita Translation & Interpreting be forgiven for continuing to waste public money and increasing the cost of the administration of justice?

I think we should be told.

Anyone who has read this blog regularly will know that the Ministry of Justice’s contracting of interpreting services for courts and tribunals in England and Wales has been nothing short of disastrous (posts passim).

Nevertheless, Government ministers continue to perpetuate the myth that all is well with the service provided by Capita Translation & Interpreting.

The latest exhibit comes from this written question in the House of Lords on 3rd June 2013.

Lord Avebury (Liberal Democrat)

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many hearings of the second tier immigration tribunal have been cancelled on the grounds that (1) interpreters failed to attend, or (2) interpreters attending did not speak the correct language, since Applied Language Solutions began operating as the Ministry of Justice’s sole contractor for language services in February 2012.

This question received the reply below from Lord McNally, Minister of State for Justice and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords:

Lord McNally (Minister of State, Justice; Liberal Democrat)

Statistics published by the Ministry of Justice in March covering the first year of the language services contract break down requests by tribunal type. Tables 5 and 6 cover data from both the first tier tribunal and Upper Tier Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal, and contains information on bookings which were cancelled and the bookings where an interpreter did not attend. The data are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/177042/statistical-tables-jan12-jan13.xls.

These show that there has been a dramatic improvement in the interpreter contract since the start of last year, with the vast majority of bookings now being completed and a major reduction in complaints. Our changes saved taxpayers £15 million this year.

Hearings where an interpreter does not attend may exceptionally continue with the hearing to consider any “error of law” issues which can be dealt with in the absence of an interpreter. A failure to attend may not lead necessarily to a cancellation.

There is no specific complaint type for staff to select if an interpreter speaks the wrong language. The tribunal will specify the language required and the booking will be offered only to interpreters who have the appropriate qualifications to allow them to interpret in that language. Occasionally, staff may not be given the correct information on the dialect spoken by the individual and a hearing may have to be adjourned. These instances are rare and are not recorded separately for statistical purposes.

The Ministry of Justice seems to be applying the philosophy outlined by a certain A. Hitler in Mein Kampf, i.e. “if you are going to tell a lie, tell a big one and if you tell if often enough, people will begin to believe it”.

The inhabitants of Petty France seem to believe the lie, but more and more outsiders are becoming increasingly sceptical of ministerial pronouncements. How much longer will the Ministry of Justice keep up the pretence before the train wreck that is the framework agreement consigned to the scrap heap?

The post below is reposted from Linguist Lounge and shows that the MoJ’s interpreting contract is continuing not to work and that judges are now starting to get very angry indeed with Capita Translation & Interpreting’s excuses. The ‘explanation’ of an interpreter being booked for a certain time and not turning up until later, if at all (posts passim).

The information comes from a barrister identified as JF.

Case details:

Date: 28/05/13
Place: Norwich Crown Court
Interpreter: Not Known
Interpreter booked through the sole contractor
Case: R v Morkūnas T20127248
Noticed by: Defence Counsel

What happened:

The above case was listed at 9.30 for custody time limit (CTL) hearing. The interpreter should have been there for a conference at 9.00 but did not arrive until 10.30.

The case was called on twice but the court could not proceed as no interpreter was present. The defendant had to have a conference with the instructing solicitor in English. The solicitor, having had many hours in conference with the defendant, was able – just – to adapt to his limited vocabulary. Fortunately, for complex reasons, the outcome had no practical implications for him.

My comments:

This is the usual. The explanation given by Capita was that she, the interpreter, had been booked for 10.30. No member of the Norwich CC staff would have made a booking for 10.30 as it is established over many years that CTL hearings are at 9.30 and need to be preceded by a conference. The knock-on effect was that the trial in which I, Defence Counsel, was committed in an adjoining court, was delayed. Fortunately there was no practical loss as late disclosure aborted the trial. The learned Judge did not appear to believe the explanation of the interpreter being booked for 10.30 and said enquiries would be made.

Under the old system there were a number of excellent Lithuanian interpreters who lived within 40 minutes of the court, were familiar with its practises, and have never, in my experience, been late.

The above information I have supplied is true
*Barrister name and contact details withheld by RPSI Linguist Lounge*

The mainstream media are now (finally) beginning to pick up on the asset stripping and hatchet job on the British justice system being perpetrated by Chris Grayling, Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor.

Earlier this week, Fleet Street Fox of the Mirror posted a piece entitled ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ It’s a pretty comprehensive analysis of what Grayling et al. are planning and the likely implications of their plans.

Included amongst the comments on the post is the one below from ‘Anonymous’ who’s a civil servant working in the courts service. I’ve taken the liberty of tweaking the formatting and capitalising the start of sentences (which the original author failed to do). The quote itself is reproduced by kind permission of Fleet Street Fox.

I’d really like to put my name to this, but as I’m a serving civil servant working within the court service I’m banned from saying anything about my job online (yes really). For the last 5 years the way the courts have been run borders on the imbecilic. I work in a fines dept and have been moved so far away from my original office I now have to commute for 3 hours a day. I’m not management, just regular bottom of the rung, admin worker. They’ve spend obscene amounts on consultants and “LEAN agents” while the actual work that needs to be done piles up because there simply isn’t the staff to do it. I despair of what this government is doing to public services.

The general sense of despondency that emerges from the comment is almost tangible, whilst the amount spent on consultants and their ilk and the general mismanagement both go to reinforce a couple of findings about the Ministry of Justice that are already in the public domain: firstly that the MoJ is not an enjoyable place to work (posts passim); and secondly that the MoJ is not an “intelligent customer” in the words of the House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee (posts passim).