29th July
Bradford interpreters angry over pay rate cut
Interpreters are angry at a
further cut in their pay which means that from Thursday they will be paid a
little more than half of what they were a few years ago.
The interpreters, who
provide services at courts and for the NHS, work on a freelance basis for
Bradford Community Interest Company Enable2.
They say the latest cut,
from £16.50 to £13 a hour for face-to-face interpreting with less than two
weeks' notice, could cause real hardship for some as they might only have two
or three sessions a day and they have travel and other costs on top.
A few years ago some
interpreters were paid £25 an hour.
The company says
market conditions have meant they have had to cut what they charge for their
services and so cannot maintain the rates that they pay.
A petition started on
change.org by the United Interpreters Yorkshire group has attracted more than
400 signatures.
A member of the group
said: "This will cause real hardship.
"As a
self-employed interpreter, you don't know how much you're going to earn in a
month.
"It's not
acceptable.
"This is the
lowest, others pay a lot more than this."
She said they were
told they could work for other agencies and many interpreters may do just that:
"People are not prepared to work for that money."
Once travelling time
and costs are included, it might mean interpreters may only take home £6 an
hour, she added.
She said Enable2 are
employing a lot more interpreters without qualifications and the service
offered could be affected.
She said interpreting
was not just about knowing how to speak a language, especially when they are
called to police stations or some parts of the NHS.
"I've got a
diploma, I know what a professional person is."
Joanne Kennedy,
operations director at Enable2, said: "Enable2 is a Community Interest
Company providing linguistic support for people needing support when they
access healthcare and other public sector services
"To be clear, We
are not a profit-making entity. Of our revenue, at present around 76% is paid
directly to our interpreters, and the additional money is either used to pay
for our infrastructure or reinvested back into the communities we serve through
our Community Investment Fund.
"The issue that we have faced is that, since
2008, market conditions have reduced what we are able to charge for our
services. The reduction in public-sector budgets, coupled with a marked
increase in the number of interpreting and translation services, has meant that
we have been able to charge about 50% of what was the going rate a decade ago.
"We have tried to
shield our interpreters from the cuts as much as possible, but it is simply not
possible to maintain the rates we were able to pay.
"To put this into some
context, when interpreters were being paid £25 an hour their payments were
equivalent to about 60% of our total revenue. Despite the reduction in pay the
interpreters have had to face, the total percentage of our revenue that we are
now paying directly to interpreters has actually increased to 76%.
"We want to stress
that these changes mean that Enable2 is not undercutting the market. In fact,
as our recent tenders have shown, our prices are in line with the sector as a
whole. We are simply having to change our operating model to ensure that our
very talented team of interpreters continue to receive work from us.”
