23 July 2025
[…] The court was told a hearing where he was expected to enter a plea to the charge could not go ahead for a second time, because of the lack of a Malaysian interpreter.
Magistrates adjourned the case until August 8 saying they had “reluctantly” approved a defence application to delay the “very serious charge”. [...]
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2025-07-14.67539.h
Courts and Prisons: Translation Services
Ministry of Justice written question – answered at on 22 July 2025.
Lewis Cocking Conservative, Broxbourne
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much was spent on (a) translation and (b) interpretation services in the (i) courts and (ii) prison system in the last financial year.
Sarah Sackman The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice
The Ministry of Justice has a statutory duty to provide Language Services to enable access to justice for users for whom English is not their first language and those who require visual and tactile services, under the provision of the Equality Act. Language Service needs and spend are assessed to ensure these services offer good value for money for taxpayers while maintaining high standards of service delivery.
In FY 2024/25, the spend in the courts was £33,073,280.44 on interpretation (spoken) and £136,879.03 on translation (written).
In FY 2024/25, the contracted spend in the prisons was £105,849.83 on interpretation (spoken) and £1,707,440.07 on translation (written).
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2025-07-14.67538.h
Social Security Benefits: Translation Services
Department for Work and Pensions written question – answered at on 22 July 2025.
Lewis Cocking Conservative, Broxbourne
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much she spent on providing (a) translation and (b) interpretation services for benefit claimants in the last year.
Stephen Timms The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions
The spend in the period of January 2024 – December 2024:
a) Translation: £882,118 b) Interpreting: £6,774,336
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2025-07-08.66053.h
Courts: Interpreters and Translation Services
Ministry of Justice written question – answered at on 15 July 2025.
Zöe Franklin Liberal Democrat, Guildford
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has made an assessment of the (a) effectiveness and (b) value for money of outsourcing interpreter and translation services for court proceedings; and what steps she has taken to ensure (i) quality, (ii) consistency and (iii) the protection of fair trial rights when third-party contractors provide such services.
Sarah Sackman The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice
The Department has recently undertaken a re-procurement of its interpreter and translation service under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. These regulations mandate that public bodies aggregate expenditure on classes of goods and services and ensure that competition is applied through defined procurement procedures to ensure value for money. This principle underpinned the Ministry of Justice’s previous procurement of services and remains the case today.
The Ministry of Justice has regular conversations with stakeholders and incorporated their views into the options explored within a delivery model assessment which resulted in the consideration of insourcing, and hybrid options of insource and outsource. Stakeholders were informed in 2022/23 that the Department planned to continue with an outsourced model after assessments indicated that it was the best model for our needs. This option allowed for greater cost efficiency and enabled a larger share of funding to be directed towards paying interpreters.
It is vital that victims, witnesses and defendants understand what is happening in court to ensure justice is done. To support this, the Ministry of Justice operates a robust performance and quality regime for interpretation and translation services. These include monthly meetings with suppliers and stakeholders to monitor and discuss, in detail, the quality of the services being provided and performance against contractual performance indicators. The suppliers forecast demand, and work to ensure that there is a pool of qualified interpreters available to the Department to fulfil bookings and facilitate fair trials for those that require interpretation services. The contracts also provide for the Ministry of Justice to audit the suppliers to verify the accuracy of contractual payments, management information, and compliance with contractual obligations.
In addition, the Department has awarded a contract for the provision of independent quality assurance of the services provided under these other contracts. This assurance is undertaken in a number of ways, including:
· Managing the Ministry’s register of interpreters
· Conducting an annual audit of supplier processes for introducing new interpreters
· Conducting a programme of 'spot checks' of interpreters undertaking assignments
· Annual surveys of business users of the service
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2025-06-27.63455.h
Health Services: Translation Services
Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 9 July 2025.
Joe Robertson Conservative, Isle of Wight East
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will list each foreign language where there has been (a) translation and (b) interpretation to facilitate engagement with the proposed NHS 10-Year Health Plan.
Karin Smyth Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Change NHS portal was available in English, Urdu, Romanian, Punjabi, and Polish, as these are the five most common languages in England, as reported by the 2021 Census. Participants at 10-Year Health Plan deliberative engagement events were given the option to request translation into any other language.
