There have been new moves in the ongoing catastrophe of the new arrangements for the provision of court interpreting services (posts passim).

Justice Minister Helen Grant MP has taken up the repeated calls by professional interpreters’ groups for talks and invited them to meet and discuss ‘a way forward’ following parliamentary hearings where MPs on the House of Commons Justice Select Committee (JSC) and Public Accounts Committee (PAC) exposed the infeasibility of the Ministry of Justice’s £42 mn. contract for court interpreting.

Both committees have heard evidence of the botched procurement process and farcical administration of the contract by Capita, who bought Applied Language Solutions (ALS) at the end of 2011 before the contract was implemented on 30 January 2012.

Whilst the agreement to meet has been cautiously welcomed by ten professional interpreter organisations represented by Professional Interpreters for Justice, Guillermo Makin, the Chairman of the Society for Public Service Interpreting (SPSI), has expressed disappointment at the Minister’s apparent lack of understanding of the gravity of the current situation in courts.

He says: “The Framework Agreement (FWA) set up by the Ministry of Justice is unsalvageable and whilst we are pleased that the Minister has accepted our proposal to meet, we are disappointed that, given the compelling evidence of the last two weeks, Ms Grant continues to believe the unverified, self-serving performance figures served up by Capita Translation and Interpreting. These figures are widely regarded as dubious to say the least and thus far remain unverified by the Ministry of Justice, as pointed out by Baroness Coussins in the Lords on July 9th“.

This was echoed by Geoffrey Buckingham, Chairman of the Association of Police and Court Interpreters (APCI), who added: “We will be interested to determine whether this is simply a case of the Minister ‘going through the motions’ because the National Audit Office recommended it or whether the Government is now ready to engage in genuine consultation, which so far they have singularly failed to do. Ms Grant has expressed a desire and a need to rebuild trust with the interpreting community, yet one meeting does not represent a trust building measure. This contract is not working and everybody knows it. We believe the Minister needs to listen to how interpreters’ organisations can help deliver language services more efficiently and save money in the public interest, whilst serving the interests of justice”.

When repeatedly questioned by Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the PAC, on Monday, Capita refused to concede that the FWA should be modified, despite openly admitting that they now believed that the contract’s key performance indicators were “unrealistic” and “unachievable”.

In response to questioning, Andy Parker, Capita’s Joint Chief Operating Officer, said the company was aware of the resistance of professional interpreters to work under the new system, but had made no attempt to meet them. “We didn’t expect that the amount of interpreters who have refused to work would continue,” he said.

Ms Hodge commented, “It sounds like chaos, frankly”. When she asked how many of the 1,000 court interpreters on the company’s books had been properly assessed or had their qualifications checked, Mr Parker couldn’t answer, to which Ms Hodge responded: “I can’t believe you’re running this show and you don’t have that figure; it is frightening”.

Back in February 2012 a spokesperson for ALS/Capita claimed the company already had 3,000 registered interpreters on its books. The hearings revealed that only 280 of these had in fact successfully completed the assessment process by the start of the contract.

Finally, a reminder: tomorrow, November 2nd sees the closure of submissions to the JSC’s Court Language Services Forum (posts passim).

It’s not just the Public Accounts Select Committee that’s taking an interest in the court interpreting and translation services shambles currently being presided over by ALS/Capita (posts passim).

The Justice Committee is naturally also taking an interest and has just launched a Court Languages Forum as part of its inquiry.

The following notice was issued to coincide with the forum’s launch:

The Justice Committee has launched an inquiry into the provision of interpretation and translation services since Applied Language Solutions (ALS) began operating as the Ministry of Justice’s sole contractor for language services in February 2012. The Committee had an excellent response to its call for written evidence. We have been given many examples which highlight apparent under-performance but most of these have been provided by third parties and relate to the first few months of operation.

The Justice Committee has heard that some stakeholders may be reticent to provide formal written evidence. These may include: court and tribunal service staff; members of the judiciary and magistracy; legal practitioners and other practitioners; defendants in criminal cases and parties in civil and family cases and interpreters providing services on behalf of ALS. We would encourage these individuals to submit their experiences through this web forum using an anonymous user name.

The Justice Committee would like to hear from individuals with direct experience of the provision of interpreting and translation services by Applied Language Solutions (ALS). The Justice Committee would particularly like to hear about direct examples of recent performance issues (during September and October 2012) surrounding the operation of the Framework Agreement between the Ministry of Justice and ALS.

Comments will be pre-moderated before being posted on this web forum. Comments will be moderated at least every working day. Where possible we will aim to publish accepted posts within 24 hours. This forum is pre-moderated and comments that breach the online discussion rules will not be posted. Please avoid naming particular courts or court cases. Any such responses may not be posted on the forum by moderators. This forum will close on 2 November 2012.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Justice made a massive cock-up when it changed the method by which courts in England and Wales procured interpreters. It handed a £ 43 mn. contract for court interpreting services to an outfit called Applied Language Solutions (ALS), an outfit totally incapable of and unprepared for handling such a large contract.

Once it had laid its hands on the court interpreting contract, ALS sought to change the terms and conditions under which interpreters are engaged, introducing a savage pay and expenses cut, resulting in a boycott of ALS which is still continuing as many interpreters are not prepared to do a professional job of work for a rate of pay that now works out at less than the minimum wage once expenses have been deducted.

To attempt to make good the shortfall, ALS resorted to hiring unqualified translators, including a rabbit called Jajo.

Earlier this week the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee examined the MoJ/ALS fiasco (footage here). The senior civil servants in charge of the project did not put in a good performance. To call them incompetent would be too praiseworthy.

Just as the Select Committee were settling in to their deliberations, the latest edition of Private Eye had also picked up the ALS story.

As the Eye piece points out, ALS has since been acquired by Capita and rebranded Capita Translation and Interpreting.

Private Eye spells Capita with an additional ‘r’. Say no more.