https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/cost-of-living/dwp-spends-8-million-year-31049382
DWP spends £8 million a year on interpreters for people on benefits
Taxpayers have spent £8 MILLION a year on interpreters for benefits claimants, figures show. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is paying out an average of £250 per call to give advice, with some languages having fewer than a million speakers.
The DWP is spending £8m a year on translators for nearly 90 different languages, some of which are spoken by fewer than a million people worldwide. There have been 92,240 video, phone or face-to-face sessions to date under the three-year, £23.1 million contract for translation services for 88 different languages provided to the DWP, according to the data.
The DWP said the £23.1 million included video remote services and British Sign Language, where it was required in 2,600 calls. Neil O’Brien, a former health minister who obtained the information through parliamentary questions, said it raised the issue of why the UK was providing benefits to people who could not speak English. […]
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