20 June 2013
Justice ministry
outsourcing could lead to 'train crash', says watchdog
Justice committee chair criticises ministry's
naivety over contracting out of court interpreters service
The contracting out of key services by the Ministry
of Justice could end in a "multiple train crash" because the
department displays naivety and lacks the capacity to understand what it is
doing, according to a parliamentary watchdog.
Sir Alan Beith, the Liberal Democrat chairman of
the justice select committee, said the "inglorious saga" of the court
interpreters service was being swiftly followed by plans to contract out most
of the probation service, court infrastructure and criminal legal aid
representation.
Three damning reports – from the justice select
committee, the National Audit Office and the public accounts committee (PAC) –
have criticised the MoJ's decision to hand over all courtroom interpreting in
England and Wales from February 2012 to the private contractor Capita.
In a parliamentary debate, Beith said the service
"never reached a satisfactory level" and its performance had since
slipped back. "This is a department which is putting out to contract about
70% of rehabilitation services, [court infrastructure and] a large part of
criminal legal aid," he said.
"If things go wrong in the same way as they
have in the court interpreter services, it will be a multiple train crash we
will be facing."
The MoJ did not have the capacity to contract out
all these services at once, he added, nor did it have a sufficient
understanding of the complexity of court interpreters' work. "The MoJ's
naivety seems to be matched by [Capita's] under-performance against the
contract," Beith said.
The department's decision to prevent court staff
from co-operating with MPs' research into the new contract, he said, could
constitute a "contempt of the House [of Commons]".
Alan Johnson, the former Labour home secretary,
said three reports had concluded there was no fundamental problem with the original
court interpreting service.
ALS sold itself to Capita shortly after winning the
£42m-a-year deal. The PAC report said the MoJ ignored an internal report
warning that ALS should not be given anything worth more than £1m a year.
"The right to a fair trial has been seriously
compromised," Johnson said. More than 600 court cases have been postponed
or abandoned as a result of problems with Capita interpreters – a 100% increase
on the previous year's figures.
Sir Gerald Kaufman, a Labour MP, described the new
service as "shambolic". In one case a Bengali speaker was sent to
translate for a Congolese defendant. On another occasion a Lithuanian speaker
arrived to help a Slovak defendant. Kaufman added: "A sex trial failed to
proceed because interpreters failed to appear. That cost £10,000."
MoJ figures suggesting savings had been made were
condemned as misleading because they failed to take into account additional
costs incurred from delayed cases. The Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn said the
government had "an obsession with contract culture" because it
distanced ministers from difficult decisions.
Replying to the debate, the justice minister Helen
Grant said: "The old system was not ideal and did not provide value for
money. There were teething problems with the new service.
"The government has made savings of £16.7m in
the first year and invested £2.9m back into the system. We are satisfied with
the quality of interpreters used."
Capita said: "There have been challenges
regarding the delivery of this contract, but the business has invested in
improving its performance. Processes have been put in place to get the service
running efficiently and effectively which means the vast majority of booking
requests are fulfilled and the volume of complaints has fallen."
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