23 May 2013
Legal aid contracts just
won’t work
[…] "But given the Ministry of Justice’s lamentable
track record, the chances that they will go according to plan are just about
nil. When the ministry introduced a far simpler scheme to centralise bookings
for legal interpreters the result, as we all now know, was courtroom chaos that
continues to this day.
The winner of the interpreting contract, an Oldham
company, Applied Language Solutions (ALS), promised huge savings by using
unqualified interpreters, and duly delivered a widely predicted disaster.
The whole fiasco was described by Margaret Hodge,
chair of the Public Accounts Committee: “… Total chaos... there has been a
sharp rise in delayed, postponed and abandoned trials; individuals have been
kept on remand solely because no interpreter was available; and the quality of
interpreters has at times been appalling. Despite this, the Ministry has only
penalised the supplier a risible £2,200. This is an object-lesson in how not to
contract out a public service.”
The ministry’s handling of the ALS contract has
been so cack-handed — and still is — that it is impossible even to guess the
amount of money wasted in adjournments and unnecessary remands, to say nothing
of the misery and injustice caused to witnesses and defendants. Many
interpreters have simply packed up and left the profession to the unqualified
and untrained amateurs that the “reformed” system now relies upon.
The ALS scandal involved a single contract intended
to save £5 million. It only affected the small fraction of cases in which
interpreters are required. The mind boggles at the thought of the same ministry
being let loose on 400 separate contracts, in a scheme affecting practically
every criminal case in the country.
Before signing the ALS contract the Ministry of
Justice was warned that it would be a disaster. It ploughed on regardless. It
is heading for a far bigger disaster now, and it cannot say that it was not
warned."
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