Unite joins interpreting campaign
Britain’s biggest trade union this week joined a campaign for the Ministry of Justice to bring courtroom interpreting services back in-house from a contract with Applied Language Solutions (ALS).
‘The courts system is descending into chaos, as suspects are not being informed of their rights and defendants are unable to instruct their barristers,’ Sally Kosky, national officer at Unite, said. ‘The cost of this outsourced shambles will, in the end, far outweigh any possible financial savings.’
ALS started to provide interpreting services to courts on 1 February under a contract designed to save £18m a year. Government ministers insist standards are improving.
But Unite and five professional organisations representing 2,343 registered public service interpreters called for courts and police services to resume the direct hiring of freelance interpreters. The campaign also urges statutory regulation of the interpreting profession and protection of the title of legal interpreter.
The organisations taking part in the campaign are: the National Union of Professional Interpreters and Translators (part of Unite); the Association of Police and Court Interpreters; the Society for Public Service Interpreting; the Professional Interpreters Alliance; the Institute of Translation and Interpreting; and the Society of Official Metropolitan Interpreters.
Meanwhile, a judge at Worcester Crown Court publicly criticised ALS for failing to provide interpreters on time, saying that their absence was becoming a serious problem. According to local press reports, Judge Toby Hooper QC said to a Polish defendant whose case was adjourned for the fourth time because of the non-appearance of an interpreter: ‘I am ashamed of the system which fails yet again to provide an interpreter for you.’
ALS said its service has improved with the addition of more backroom staff and increased pay and expenses.
Justice minister Crispin Blunt this week gave his backing to the contract. He told the commons in a written reply: ‘We are seeing a steady improvement in performance.’ However, he said ALS is ‘not yet’ delivering service in line with some key performance indicators, for example that 98% of all assignments requested are fulfilled.
‘We are demanding continued action to ensure that the contractor meets these performance levels as soon as possible. Contingency arrangements to minimise disruption to courts and tribunals will remain in place until then,’ Blunt said.
The Crown Prosecution Service has also signed up to a framework agreement with ALS for the provision of interpreters in Lancashire, Staffordshire, West Midlands and West Yorkshire. A spokeswoman said no ‘significant’ problems had been reported and it would seek to adopt the same practice in all areas over time.
Comments
Get your facts straight Blunt
Dear Crispin Blunt,
In this letter I shall refer to the statements you make in Parliament on Tuesday, 13th March. You said:
"There was a pilot over six to eight weeks in the north-west, which gave no indication of the problems"
So Crispin, did you read these articles from the legal profession:
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/row-erupts-over-police-interpreters (3/2/2011)
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/defence-solicitors-warn-moj-over-interpreter-outsourcing (10/3/2011)
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/moj-attacked-over-interpreters-contract (14/7/2011)
The truth, Crispin, is that there were plenty of indications of problems, but you chose to ignore them. Why, Crispin, why?
"Within two weeks of the national roll-out, when the problems became clear, the Ministry of Justice procurement people were across the problems at ALS and measures were put in place to put right the problems. Some of the problems, strangely enough, came from the interpreters who, on finding that under the new payment regime they could no longer earn six-figure salaries, as they could under the previous Administration, did not co-operate. They are now doing so."
Where is this six figure salary Crispin, where? It's been a long time since you were at Business School, so lets do that Math shall we? You have publicly stated that the previous spend on interpreters was £60M, and that there are 2300 NRPSI registered interpreters. That makes an average salary of £26K gross. Once again, your facts don't stand up Crispin, why?
"The idea that we are not interested in the matter, when we are making £18 million of savings in the provision of interpreters under a process that was commenced under the previous Administration and after interpreters had been grossly overpaid and had taken advantage of the system that was in place under that Administration, is beyond belief."
You have given THREE contracts for interpreting to ALS:
http://www.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk/Common/View%20Notice.aspx?site=1000&lang=en¬iceid=264052&fs=true
£300M over 48 months = £75M per year.
http://www.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk/Common/View%20Notice.aspx?site=1000&lang=en¬iceid=352922&fs=true
£125M over 60 months = £25M per year.
http://www.contractsfinder.businesslink.gov.uk/Common/View%20Notice.aspx?site=1000&lang=en¬iceid=414414&fs=true
£8M over 57 months = £1.68M per year.
Once again, lets do the Math shall we:
The total contract value given by MoJ to ALS = £433 million
The total annual spend by the MoJ on ALS = £102 million
Where is this saving of £18M from the previous annual spend of £60, Crispin, where? Just the first contract above indicates an increased spend of £15M per year. Why Crispin, why?
So Crispin, will you please get your facts straight, stop misleading Parliament and the general public, and tell us why you have enacted this contract to the detriment of Justice, The Exchequer, and 2300 self-employed processionals.
Professionals?
I see that some professional associations are jumping on board with all of this and promoting what appears to be strike action. Is that the remit of a professional association? should they not be practicing a diplomatic resolution?
It is heartening to note that neither the Chartered Institute of linguists or the new National Register is putting their names to these aggressive actions.
When I was an interpreter, up until 4 years ago, I worked with many nice calm people, in those days not everything was good but we all knew where we stood. It was then that interpreters started to whine on about the National Register and the methods of recruiting interpreters, the downfall started then. You just cannot please some people, very sad to see this.
This is corrupt system , only
This is corrupt system , only one bidder, 300 millions being awarded for 5 years contract, no savings, corruption, lies, who would do the same amount of work under the same conditions for a 60%less pay????
feed up with corrupt politicians and their affirmations. No interpreter would earn 6 figures salary!!!!! We also pay taxes, insurance, fees, etc. A lot of rubbish, just to lie the taxpayers and throw the whole profession into degradation and poverty. Mr. Blunt and Mr. Clarke have no idea whatsoever about the reality and they are only listening to ALS and their lies and stupid figures. They should get in contact with the listings offices, with solicitors, court officials, judges, magistrates, etc. There is more than ALS in this world. LIES LIES LIES, taxpayers are mislead and misinformed by a bunch o greedy,corrupt politicians.
Salaries vs income from freelance activity
In addition to Ben G's exhaustive comments on this chaos, let me just point out very clearly that the notion of "salaries" is grossly misleading in the context of court interpreters. They are freelancers, not salaried employees. This just goes to show that Mr Blunt doesn't know what he's talking about in more than one respect.
On a related note, six-figure income levels are rare among freelance translators and interpreters (i.e. sole traders as opposed to agencies) - this applies to Germany, where I do business as a freelance translator and interpreter, but also to Europe in general.
Interpreters are not fool enough to work for such rates.
Mr Blind (aka Crispin Blunt) is too blind to see the effects of this contract in courts, interpreters and public after creating a disaster in courts with his short-sighted approach. Despite all those failures of ALS published in the media, Mr Blind refused to opt out of the contract and he is adamant that his decision was right. Perhaps he has an affair with Mr Wheeliebin (aka Gavin Wheeldon) and finds it too difficult to say no to him as it is likely that the contract may bring him a fortune through Capita, which is the biggest donor for Tory party that Mr Blind is a member of.
Mr Wheeliebin thought that interpreters would be fool enough to be taken in by his lies and his rates of pay, but he now realizes that the only people who would be attracted by such rates would be cleaners, rabits, barmen, and tourists who have never seen UK courts before. Mr Wheeliebin and the cleaners he employs who often attend courts in boiler suits and overalls are working so successfully hand-in-hand that they seem to have already cleaned the qualified interpreters off the courts. Well done to Mr Wheeliebin if this was his objective when he signed the contract!
Interpreters cannot afford to waste their time for such rates when they can get much better hourly rates from other interpreting and translation jobs through other agencies. Even if ALS claim to have booked an interpreter for a court a week in advance, there is no guarantee that their interpreter would not cancel it last minute when he/she receives a call for a better paid job elsewhere on the day of the assignment, leaving courts and Mr Wheeliebin in despair. This might be the reason why they are finding it difficult to attract interpreters in certain languages like Romanian, Polish and Lithuanian since those interpreters get regular calls from other agencies where they can get paid five times as much. Would you work for five days a week for ALS to earn an amount which you can earn elsewhere in a day?
The rule is simple: what you pay is what you get. If you pay only one fifth of the amount an interpreter would have earned from elsewhere for the same hours of work, you can't recruit qualified interpreters and those you recruited would not be loyal to your agency, making you face problems everyday such as by last minute cancellations and wasted costs orders as a result.
On the ALS "interpreters" list, it is not surprising to see people like cleaners who can't get any better rates of pay elsewhere. The list also includes unqualified people failed to pass DPSI exams who wouldn't have been employed in courts under the old system. As those groups of people are not likely to be employed as interpreters elsewhere, they are the only people who may accept the ALS terms temporarily. ALS shouldn't forget that qualified interpreters have many more sectors to work in other than courts, so they can't take the risk of losing better opportunities by accepting court assignments for such rates.
ALS are basically attracting wrong people for the wrong job and claiming that they have many "qualified interpreters" on their list, but in reality, all they have is rabits, cleaners, barmen, tourists and those who failed to pass the DPSI assessments. Any qualified interpreter who is numerate enough to calculate the figures of earnings against costs and losses would refuse to work for ALS.
Court interpreters
So, can somebody please enlighten me. I read that some interpreters earn over £100,000 per year and some earn around £17,000, the numbers do not state how many hours are worked to achieve this and also do not give any notion as to skill and experience. Do senior interpreters earn more than juniors for example. It appears that in the new scheme interpreters will be paid an average of £23 per hour, not bad considering!! and under the old scheme they were paid up to £80 for 15 minutes, even better work if you can get it. I do not pretend to understand the complexities of this but surely the current state of the countries finances cannot sustain high salaries for everybody. Is this a case of interpreters have had their cream and now they must drink skimmed milk like the rest of us?
I have been working as an
I have been working as an interpreter for over 4 years and my best tax year was when I earned just over £16,000. Please keep in mind that my language is very popular and therefore I would be getting more bookings than most interpreters.
I have a law degree (from one of the top universities in this country) and have also qualified as an interpreter. Under the new system, I would be making a loss by taking a job from ALS. For example, I would not be paid for 2 hours travel, mileage or PARKING and would only get £20 (ALS do NOT pay the £22/hour rate - that only exists on paper). Having paid my parking and petrol, I would earn about £10 for 3 hours work. There is no possible way that this is acceptable, especially when we do NOT get holiday or sick pay.
Check the facts...
Language geek, the facts speak for themselves. Think about it, £60M paid for the services of 2300 self-employed interpreters = £26K gross each. Out of this, interpreters pay travelling and parking costs, which amount to around 20%. So the average pre-tax pay is around £20K - about the same as a self-employed plumber. To earn this, (just like a plumber) most interpreters take any job, day or night, weekends and bank-holidays.
Under the old system, there is no seniority for qualified interpreters - all interpreters were paid the same rate, under a national agreement. Therefore, no interpreters can possibly have been earning a six-figure salary.
Now click the links above, and see how much money has been doled out to this company. It appears that the MoJ is paying out more than they did under the old system. If this is true, "the cream" is being taken by this private company - why - what sane Government would do this, unless there was something in it for them?
However, since interpreters are self-employed, there is a market for their services. Most interpreters are therefore doing translation and corporate work which is paid at a higher rate.
The market has spoken, and the MoJ has been caught with its pants down... very embarrassing for Mr Blunt and his rusty MBA!
The ultimate irony is that Mr Blunt has claimed that some interpreters were abusing the system - I would like to know how. The truth is that he was one of the worst offenders in the MP's expenese scandal:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5330826/Crispin-Blunt-told-to-stop-claiming-Commons-allowance-on-his-home-because-his-children-live-there-MPs-expenses.html
Total second home claims
2004-05: £ 20,902
2005-06: £21,634
2006-07: £22,109
2007-08: £23,083
Face facts, Crispin is stealing the "cream", and he is doling it out to his friends... I would just like to know why?
Court interpreters
Whateverer the appalling Mr. Blunt might say, this contract is simply not working.Has this man been inside a Magistrates' court recently?
On two days this week interpreters have simply NOT been available at my local magistrate's court to assist defendants who need them.
Court staff, solicitors....and even friends of defendants who can speak good enough English....are doing their very best to get through the days lists....
I heard Blunt on the today programme on Thursday simply refusing to answer the simple question, 'Did ALS come in with the lowest bid for this contact'? So I think I know the answer to that one......
Andrew Cleal
Oslers Solicitors.
Re: Professionals?
@Retired Interpreter
You say: "I see that some professional associations are jumping on board with all of this and promoting what appears to be strike action. Is that the remit of a professional association?"
Registered Public Service Interpreters are self-employed freelancers and are free to take or leave any T&Cs they are offered. Hence you cannot call this strike action. The present boycott comes from grass-roots campaigners, i.e. interpreters themselves, and each individual makes his or her own choice.
Professional membership organisations have never advocated striking or boycotting; however we have consistently provided our members with all the available information to allow them to make their own informed choice. Interpreters did the maths themselves, and moreover, they considered the damage to the profession that ALS's lowered standards engender, and they decided they want no part in it. 60% of RPSIs expressly say No to this Framework Agreement, as individuals. http://goo.gl/q9WHM
You ask: "should they [the membership organisations] not be practicing a diplomatic resolution?"
Didn't you read the article? Six organisations are lobbying for the government to talk to us.