2 March 2020
Only proper register of interpreters
As if legal professionals
did not face enough challenges at work, along comes another. The profession has
for some time needed to be aware of the risks to our judicial system of
using unregistered interpreters who are not bound by a professional code
of conduct and cannot be held accountable for their work. However, it
seems that legal professionals must now also contend with distinguishing
between the National Register of Public Service Interpreters (NRPSI) and privately
owned ‘lists’ of interpreters that are, confusingly, being referred to
as ‘registers’.
This situation is alarming
for many reasons, not least because it has come to our attention that a legal
firm has rejected engaging the services of an NRPSI-registered interpreter because
they were not ‘registered’ with a certain privately owned agency.
Let us be absolutely clear:
NRPSI is the only independent register and regulator of public service
interpreters of the spoken word in the UK. Free from both political and
commercial influence, NRPSI was set up in 1994 following the recommendation of
a royal commission. NRPSI’s original aim was to ensure the legal sector always
had access to a register of interpreters whose qualifications and experience
had been independently verified as having met a transparent set of registration
criteria.
NRPSI’s aim today is the
same, but has been expanded to provide all public service organisations with
similar access. That remit, like those of other regulators, is possibly even
more relevant now given that professional expertise is increasingly coming
under threat from agencies and individuals operating without the public
interest at their heart.
Unlike the private owners
of other ‘lists’ of interpreters that have, unhelpfully at best, been called
‘registers’, NRPSI is not a language agency motivated by profit or a membership
organisation. Neither is NRPSI (and nor does it claim to be) a combination of
these. NRPSI is and always will be focused on maintaining professional
interpreting standards and protecting these from all types of threat for the
benefit of the public, our justice system and the interpreting profession.
We therefore ask Gazette readers
to ensure that you are working with NRPSI-registered interpreters by using
NRPSI’s free online register to source interpreting professionals or to check
an interpreter is registered. And please also ask to see your NRPSI
interpreter’s photo ID card. Look for the purple speech bubble – the mark of an
NRPSI-registered interpreter.
Mike Orlov
NRPSI executive director
and registrar, National Register of Public Service Interpreters
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