20 Feb 2013
Foreign suspects cost West Midlands Police £7,000 a day for interpreters
Controversial
service received £200,000 in one month as cash-strapped force feels the strain
Cash-strapped
West Midlands Police spent nearly £7,000 every day on interpreters in one month
to deal with rising numbers of foreign crime suspects.
New
figures show the force paid an astonishing £202,000 in November to
controversial Applied Language Solutions (ALS) to provide the linguists.
The
company previously won a £90 million Home Office contract to supply translators
for police forces and courts across the country.
But it
has been slated by magistrates and judges for failing to supply the
interpreters for some cases, leading to costly delays and collapsed trials.
And last
year we told how some foreign suspects had walked free from West Midlands
Police custody – because no ALS staff were available for their interviews.
The
company has also faced a backlash from its interpreters, who had staged
protests in Birmingham after claiming they were facing cuts in their wages.
The
monthly fees West Midlands Police is paying to ALS were revealed in expenditure
figures published for the first time by the new Police and Crime Commissioner’s
Office.
They show
the force paid £202,879 to the company for the month of November last year –
working out at around £7,000 every day.
That
means Oldham-based ALS, which has recently changed its name to Capita
Translation and Interpreting, could make more than £2million every year from
the force.
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