8 February 2013 by Catherine Baksi
Shambolic interpreter deal is a vision of things to come
The Ministry of Justice’s deal for
the central procurement of court interpreters has now been the subject of three
damning reports. The National Audit Office (NAO), the Public Accounts Committee
(PAC) and most recently the Justice Committee have criticised almost every
aspect of the flawed procurement process and contract management.
The PAC
concluded that the MoJ ‘was not an intelligent customer’. It described the
exercise as ‘an object lesson in how not to contract out a public service’.
Here are
some snippets from the three reports:
- Lack of
understanding of the service the MoJ was buying:
The MoJ
did not have a sufficient understanding of the complexities of court
interpreting work prior to initiating the procurement of a new service. (JC)
It
started the process ‘without basic management information on language
services’, including the cost of interpreters or what languages were required
in which location and at what notice. (PAC)
- Weak
due diligence
All three
reports highlighted weaknesses in the department’s due diligence and risk
mitigation procedures.
A
financial report commissioned by the ministry advised that Applied Language
Solutions, the company awarded the contract, was too small to be given any
business worth more than £1m a year. Despite this, the MoJ went ahead and gave
Applied a contract worth an estimated £90m over five years.
‘The
ministry failed to undertake proper due diligence on [Applied’s] winning bid.
It did not heed financial and other advice that [Applied] was too small and
would struggle to scale up to meet the Ministry's requirements in time.’ (JC)
- Failure
to listen to warnings from interpreters
During
the consultation process, interpreters raised concerns over the quality of
interpreters used by Applied, due to the low fee rates, and training and
accreditation standards.
The MoJ
‘did not give sufficient weight to the concerns and dissatisfaction that many
interpreters expressed.’ (NAO)
The
ministry ‘ignored strong opposition from the interpreter community… The
procurement and later implementation might have been more effective had the
strongly held views expressed by experienced interpreters and trade bodies
during the ministry's consultation been given greater weight.’ (JC)
‘The MoJ
and its contractor appear to have buried their heads in the sand. Many of the
concerns that interpreters raised regarding the nature of the new operating
model were realised during implementation, were utterly predictable, and should
have been properly considered from the outset.’ (JC)
‘The MoJ
was, at best, naïve to view the new arrangements simply as an “outsourced
booking process”. Interpreters had repeatedly raised significant concerns about
the new terms and conditions under which they were expected to work.’ (JC)
- Failure
to ensure the standards of interpreters:
‘Applied
did not make it clear to the MoJ that the three-tier system for interpreters
had not been supported by the independent expert it had consulted. The
department has sanctioned, untested, a tiering system that imposes major
changes to professional occupational standards and has significant potential to
undermine the progress that has been made in professional development and
resulting improvements in the quality of interpreting services provided in the
justice sector.’ (JC)
‘The
ministry was unable to confirm that all interpreters working under the contract
had the required qualifications, experience and enhanced CRB checks.’ (PAC)
During
its inquiry the PAC was given written evidence that revealed the lax vetting
processes in operation – interpreters were able to register fake names with
obviously fictitious contact details. One person even registered a rabbit,
another a cat. The committee heard that some fictitious recruits were offered
work by Applied, without having been vetted.
-
Terminology misunderstandings:
Evidence
given to the PAC showed that basic mistakes were made during the contract
process. NAO director Aileen Murphie said that at the start of the contract the
MoJ and Applied had different understandings of what it meant for an
interpreter to be ‘registered’. The MoJ thought it meant that they were fully
accredited, vetted and ready to work, while Applied used it to mean
interpreters who had registered an interest in working for them.
This in
part is the reason why the contract went live with only 280 interpreters ready
to work, out of the estimated 1,200 required.
The MoJ’s
director general of finance and corporate services, Ann Beasley, reassured the
committee: ‘I think we have learned a number of lessons from this contract. In
particular, we have made sure that we get the terminology right, so that we
understand the same things as the suppliers.’
-
Contract fulfillment and fines:
In the
first week of the contracted arrangements, Applied (which had by then been
bought by Capita and was trading as Capita Translation and Interpreting)
fulfilled 40% of requests made to it, rising to 65% in the first month. By
November fulfillment rates had risen to 95%, still short of the 98% target.
More than 2,000 complaints were received in the first quarter of operation,
comprising 13% of assignments that the company fulfilled.
Despite
this, Applied/Capita TI has received a financial penalty of only £1,100.
The
reports found that the contract did not include a strong enough incentive for
Applied to meet the requirements of the contract right from the start.
Beasley
told the justice committee that it is not unusual to take a couple of months to
get up to service levels in new contracts, indicating that the MoJ would not
seek to implement penalty clauses within that time.
Peter
Hancock, chief executive of HMCTS, told the committee ‘the level of penalties
that may be deployed under the contract are very small in any event’.
The lack
of financial penalty for failing to meet service levels seems to send out a
dangerous message to businesses looking to make a fast buck.
The
errors made in this contract have caused delay and expense for the courts, with
trials and hearing adjourned and defendants needlessly detained in custody.
Aside for
the risks to the fairness of trials and waste of public money, the mistakes
made are especially worrying because of the ministry’s declared intention of
entering more much larger and more complicated contracts with the private
sector – in relation to the probation service and the rehabilitation of
offenders. A fact that was not lost on the two commons committees.
After the
MoJ’s ‘shambolic’ handling of the court interpreter contract, can it really be
trusted to outsource more services to the private sector?
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