MOJ Outsourcing of Interpreting services – End of Day Adjournment Debate

http://johnleechmp.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/moj-outsourcing-of-interpretering-services-end-of-day-adjournment-debate/

20 October 2011

MOJ Outsourcing of Interpreting services – End of Day Adjournment Debate

In the last Parliament I secured a Westminster Hall Debate on plans by police forces in the North West to “outsource” their interpreting service to an agency. (By outsourcing I mean paying an agency to provide interpreters, rather than booking them direct.) There is a lot of evidence to show that such outsourcing led to a lowering of standards of interpreting, with lots of unqualified people being sent, instead of those with interpreting qualifications. The debate fell on deaf ears. Unfortunately the Government hasn’t learnt from the previous Government’s mistakes and now the Ministry of Justice has decided to put the provision of interpreting services into the hands of one company – Applied Language Solutions, who are one of a number of agencies that have come in for criticism in the past.

Last week I secured an “end of day of adjournment” and once again argued against outsourcing.

Continues: http://johnleechmp.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/moj-outsourcing-of-interpretering-services-end-of-day-adjournment-debate/