14 December 2012 by Nigel Morris
MPs
dismayed by 'total chaos' of £42m lost in translation
Outsourcing of courts'
interpreter service was 'an object lesson in how not to do it'
A drive to save money on court interpreters degenerated into "total
chaos" yet the firm responsible for the shambles was only fined a
"risible" £2,200, a withering report by MPs has found.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is facing deep embarrassment after the
Public Accounts Committee accused it of presiding over an "object lesson
in how not to contract out a public service". Its chairman, Margaret
Hodge, said: "Almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong."
The farce began when the ministry decided to set up a centralised system
for supplying interpreters for trials instead of allowing courts to hire them
on ad-hoc basis.
It awarded the £42m contract to a small new company, ALS, despite
warnings that it could only handle business on a fraction of that scale.
By the time the contract went live in January, the firm had recruited
just 280 of the 1,200 interpreters the Ministry said it required to cover the
country. Initially it was able to fulfil just 58 per cent of bookings – far
short of its target of 98 per cent.
Mrs Hodge said: "Many of the 'interpreters' it thought were
available had simply registered an interest on the company's website and had
been subject to no official checks that they had the required skills and
experience. Indeed we heard that some names were fictitious and one person had
even successfully registered their pet dog."
She said the MoJ bungled by deciding that the new service would go live
nationally in one big bang and by miscalculating how many interpreters – and in
which languages – were required. "The result was total chaos. Court
officials have had to scramble to find qualified interpreters at short
notice," Mrs Hodge said. "There has been a sharp rise in delayed,
postponed and abandoned trials. Individuals have been kept on remand solely
because no interpreter was available and the quality of interpreters has at
times been appalling."
In their report, the MPs accuse the MoJ of lacking intelligence in
awarding the contract despite the risks to the smooth running of courts and to
its reputation. It said the ministry failed to carry out due diligence tests on
the company, which is now owned by Capita, and had so little understanding of
what was needed that bidders were able to lead the process of awarding the
contract.
It could not confirm that all of the interpreters working under the
contract had the necessary qualifications, experience and enhanced Criminal
Records Bureau checks. The MPs added that the MoJ appeared to ignore
consultations with interpreters over the wisdom of awarding the contract to
ALS.
The committee protested: "Risible levels of penalties and low
expectations of performance allow private companies to get away with
over-promising and under-delivering."
Richard Bacon, a Tory committee member, said: "The Ministry of
Justice must learn from this debacle and pay far more attention to the basics
of contract management in future".
Helen Grant, the Justice Minister, said: "We have now seen a major
improvement in performance – more than 95 per cent of bookings are now being
filled, complaints have fallen dramatically and we are continuing to push for
further improvement. We remain confident the contract will make the expected
saving of £15m a year."
'Almost everything went wrong': ALS errors
* A murder trial at Winchester Crown Court was brought to a halt after
the Punjabi interpreter confessed that he was an unqualified stand-in for his
wife. He got the oath wrong for a witness.
* A retrial was ordered three days into a case at Snaresbrook Crown
Court, east London, when the Romanian interpreter confused the words
"beaten" and "bitten".
* A Vietnamese translator made a 560-mile round-trip from Newcastle for
an eight-minute hearing at South-East Suffolk magistrates' court.
* A man who was charged with perverting the course of justice was told
he was actually accused of being a "pervert".
* A barrister at Bradford Crown Court said it might be quicker for him
to learn Czech when an interpreter failed to turn up for his client, who was
accused of attempted murder.
Dragons' warning
Gavin Wheeldon appeared on the BBC2 entrepreneur show Dragons' Den to
appeal for financial support for his translation business ALS five years ago.
The dragons predicted success for him – but told him his valuation of his
company was wrong. Whitehall, however, had no such qualms in handing a £42m
contract to the firm.
Last year, Mr Wheeldon earned £7.5m when he sold up to Capita, with more
to come if ALS achieves certain financial targets.
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