Court interpreter situation 'improving'
Large numbers of court hearings are still being hit by interpreter problems nearly three months after new contracting arrangements began - but the situation has improved, new figures indicate.
An online survey completed by 80 lawyers and judges shows that between 16-20 April, four in 10 cases requiring an interpreter were disrupted because an interpreter failed to turn up. This was an improvement from 12-16 March, when the same survey, conducted by education and training provider CrimeLine, showed that interpreters failed to attend in 56% of cases.
Several courts have listed hearings to consider wasted costs applications against contractor Applied Language Solutions (ALS), but a spokeswoman for the company said no such orders have been made to date.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that ALS discussed different strategies for implementing its service before agreeing on a national rollout. Speaking at a demonstration by interpreters boycotting the company, shadow justice minister Andy Slaughter alleged that ALS had said it ‘didn’t want the contract to be rolled out across the country’.
An ALS spokeswoman said: ‘Various rollout plans were discussed throughout the process and ultimately a national one was agreed to be the best solution.’
Comments
ALS / Capita want to have their cake and eat it
ALS / Capita did not want the contract rolled out across the country because they want to have their cake and eat it! They would have preferred to have a free hand in rolling out the contract at a pace of their own choosing: one that served neither the courts nor the public purse, only the interests of ALS / Capita.
ALS was never capable of delivering this contract, but managed to hoodwink the Ministry of Justice with its sales spiel and hollow promises of unachievable savings.
ALS is like a barrow boy, piling the fish up high, gleaming, silver ones on top and lots of rotten ones underneath. The focus is on quantity (44% now rising to an "impressive" 60% attendance!) - not quality. They sell a "commodity" (unskilled labour piece-work for pin money) - rather than provide professional legal interpreters for courts. As a wheeler-dealer, it pays over the odds in a few select languages and strategic locations to try and con the Ministry of Justice that it is delivering an acceptable service. No wonder his mother called Gavin Wheeldon "our little Arthur Daley".
The implementation of the Ministry of Justice's Framework Agreement is farcical. It is high time the MOJ abandonned it and began proper discussions with interpreter bodies, otherwise all the truly professional legal interpreters will give up their holding positions and depart for pastures new. Contrary to the ignorant beliefs underpinning the Framework Agreement it takes years and years to educate and train to a person to a level appropriate for work as a professional interpreter in the courts.
Stats are based on fewer than 100 survey responses
The figures cited in this article are from just 80 survey responses http://t.co/v2aGYinZ and cannot possibly reflect the true extent of Applied Language Solutions/Capita's failings and the chaos being caused in courts.
What are the official figures? Ministers say that no data is being collected on the number of adjournments caused by Applied Language Solutions/Capita failing to provide interpreters. Which begs the question, why not?
Anyway, who cares how frequently Applied Language Solutions/Capita manage to send somebody to interpret at court if the person they send is incompetent and completely unqualified?
Solicitors, barristers, judges, wake up to the HR abuses happening daily in UK courts as a result of this flawed contract!
60% interpreter attendance is nothing to get excited about
Only in the context of this bizarre ALS/Capita saga could a 4% rise leading to 60% interpreter attendance be considered as something worthy of note. 60%?? This means that hundreds of cases every single day are being adjourned, thrown out, and people are being held in custody for longer and longer periods. All at a massive cost to the system. At this rate it will take years before one of the key points of the Framework Agreement - I think it was something like 95% attendance - will be attained.
At the risk of sounding like a cracked record - how much longer before the powers that be accept that the whole thing just needs dismantling?? It's been 3 months now, the situation is still dire and hugely embarrassing. ALS/Capita have had plenty time to get their act together, it's time to call it a day.
Another one-sided article
The title of this article says it all:
Court interpreter situation 'improving'
Should it not read:
ALS fails to provide an interpreter in 40% of cases
The article should then go on to explain that of the remaining 60%, many are being adjourned or thrown out, since ALS is often using unqualified "linguists" that are not on the national register of "interpreters" (NRPSI), citing examples of ALS "linguist" failure from other media sources.
Does anyone else agree that this article from Catherine Baksi is one-sided?
Not funny!
The MoJ is paying ALS/Capita £300 million for 60% attendance (plus 30% arriving late)?
Is this a joke??
Ben G I think you are being a
Ben G
I think you are being a tad harsh in that the Gazette exposed this whole mess in the first place, as even Private Eye was decent enough to acknowledge. We're only reporting how the numbers have changed; we are hardly saying the situation is ideal! For our position on the subject see my leader in the print magazine last week (also on here under opinion).
Everyone please let Catherine know of your experiences so we can continue to report this as fully as possible.
Paul Rogerson
Editor in chief
Gazette
Link to
Paul,
Many thanks for your reply. I understand and appreciate your comment. However, I cannot help but feel that the above article chose to portray only one of the four statistics in the Crimline Survey, and under a positive-sounding title. I believe that your readers should be given a fuller picture.
The survey in in question was entitled:
"CrimeLine survey reveals extent of problem arranging interpreters in criminal cases"
Its key points were:
- In more than half of all cases no interpreter showed up
- In only 26% of cases did the interpreter appear as requested
- In 18% of cases the interpreter was late for the hearing
Source:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vla6uuiahnj99lj/interpreter%20survey%20results.doc
In future, Catherine may want to contact Geoffrey Buckingham, chairman of the The Association of Police & Court Interpreters, on order to balance any comment from ALS.
e-mail: chairman@apciinterpreters.org.uk
Telephone: 07973 759 676
New figures reveal ALS struggling to cope
CrimeLine reports that 40% of cases requiring an interpreter were disrupted due to no interpreter attending during the week 16th – 20th April 2012.
The figures do not reflect, however, how many ALS interpreters were provided for 60% of those hearings when an interpreter did attend. Courts across England and Wales continue using a dual booking system where listings officers refer to registered interpreters direct or contact other commercial interpreting agencies if Capita-owned Applied Language Solutions can’t supply a linguist.
There have been cases when courts preferred to ring round NRPSI interpreters avoiding going to ALS in the first instance all together.
Crimeline also identified that timeliness of attendance became an increasing problem.
In a response to a Freedom of Information Request dated 17th April regarding the circumstances in which court staff are permitted to source interpreters from organisations or individuals not associated with ALS, the HM Courts and Tribunal Service official stated: "We will be constantly reviewing performance over that period and these arrangement will remain in place until we are clear that the contractor is able to meet demand".
This is a clear acknowledgement that ALS is still unable to cope with all bookings. The question is how long will this new system be allowed to continue? It has been demonstrated that it’s ineffective, irrational and costly, considering that other resources have to be used. The Ministry of Justice can easily terminate this Framework Agreement just on performance indicators alone.
Still not good enough
If this was education there would be an outcry.
Imagine if only
60% of candidates turned up for an exam.
or 60% of trains/buses turned up