6 February 2013 by Owen Bowcott
Trials collapsing thanks to 'shambolic' privatisation of translation
services
Ministry
of Justice and Capita-owned interpreting firm condemned by MPs as courts count
the cost of no-shows
The privatisation
of court interpreting services has been "shambolic", MPs warn saying
it has caused more trials to collapse and suspects to be remanded unnecessarily
in custody.
In a
damning report on the decision to hand a near-monopoly of courtroom
interpreting in England and Wales to the company Applied Language Solutions
(ALS), the justice select committee criticises the Ministry of Justice for
failing to understand the complexity of the service.
The
extent of the "very poor performance" had been partially concealed by
the MoJ's failure to provide complete statistics, the committee's report says.
Its
inquiry, it says, has also been hampered by the ministry's "extremely
unhelpful" attitude; court staff were instructed not to co-operate with
the committee's investigation and take part in an online survey.
The
contract awarded to ALS, which went live last February, has been fraught with
controversy. Hundreds of professional interpreters are boycotting ALS, now owned
by the service provider Capita, over what they say are low fees.
The
report says that though there might have been "administrative
inefficiencies" under previous arrangements for hiring individual
interpreters directly, there were no "fundamental problems" with the
previous service.
"The
Ministry of Justice's handling of the outsourcing of court interpreting
services has been nothing short of shambolic," Sir Alan Beith, chair of
the committee, says. "It did not have an adequate understanding of the
needs of courts, it failed to heed warnings from the professionals concerned,
and it did not put sufficient safeguards in place to prevent interruptions in
the provision of quality interpreting services to courts."
The
contract was awarded to ALS, the report says, despite a credit-rating report
commissioned by the department that concluded the firm should not be given any
work worth more than £1m a year. Court interpreting costs had been running at
£4m a year.
"We
are seriously concerned about the increase in ineffective trials as a result of
non-attendance of interpreters, particularly in magistrates courts," the
report says. "We will monitor the quarterly statistics on ineffective
trials for the remainder of the year to see whether this is an ongoing
trend."
In one
case, the committee heard, a defendant with no previous convictions [was]
remanded in custody on three consecutive occasions for lack of an interpreter,
then granted unconditional bail.
The MoJ's
financial assessment of the problem had been inadequate, the committee says:
"The ministry was unable to provide information on the additional costs to
the department of the delaying of trials because of the failure to provide
interpreters.
"There
has been an extra cost both to the courts and to prisons caused by the
postponement of judicial proceedings. In the future, the ministry must
undertake comprehensive cost and benefit analysis of its new policies."
It also
adds: "Performance figures clearly do not reflect the company's fulfilment
against 100% of the requirements of [the court service] and they should be
altered, retrospectively and in the future, to indicate this."
Despite
putting in a "very poor performance", the MoJ is criticised for
penalising ALS by the sum of only £2,200. It was fined nothing at all "for
the first four months, when performance was at its worst".
ALS, the
report claims, "paid lip service" to many of its regulatory
obligations. The need for interpreters to have appropriate qualifications and criminal
record checks were "flagrantly disregarded".
Justice
minister Helen Grant said: "There were significant issues at the start of
the contract in early 2012 but we took swift, robust, action and have seen
dramatic improvements, as the justice select committee highlights.
"The
vast majority of interpreter bookings are now being completed and complaints
have fallen considerably. The changes we have made have led to major savings
for taxpayers, totalling £15m in the first year, and we continue to monitor the
contract on a daily basis and demand continuing progress."
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