14 May 2013
How to get ahead in …
public services translation
Bilingual rent arrears officer Mohammed Ali uses
Bengali every day to speak to tenants living in Tower Hamlets for whom English
is not their first language.
It is something he has done instinctively since he
joined Tower Hamlets Homes (THH) — the arm's-length organisation responsible
for 22,000 council homes in the east London borough. But as of last October he
is one of 25 of the organisation's employees who are now paid a community
language honorarium of £50 a month for either regularly using a language other
than English to help communicate with tenants, or for interpreting or
translating.
"Bengali is my first language and I've always
spoken to tenants in Bengali," says Ali. "If English isn't their
first language it's normal for me. It saves time because I don't have to book a
translator but it's also satisfying as tenants understand what you are
saying."
The social landlord introduced a community language
honorarium for staff to reward and recognise bilingual staff who naturally used
languages other than English routinely in their work. But it also hoped it
would encourage other bilingual staff to offer their language skills on an
as-needed basis to improve the quality of services it offers to residents.
Peter Brown, the business innovation manager whose
team designed the scheme, says: "It's also something that has come from
residents. They wanted us to make a stronger offer around languages."
According to the organisation's figures, 9% of its
tenants cannot speak English and 7% cannot understand written English. Its
housing advisers receive 10 calls a day where the conversation takes place in
Bengali. The staff are a rich source of language skills: 90 staff speak 26
languages between them, of whom 69% say they are fluent or native speakers while
56 staff have used a language other than English to help provide services in
the last 12 months.
Brown is optimistic that its talent pool of
in-house interpreters and translators will grow as knowledge and confidence in
the project increases. He says: "I think more people will come forward as
colleagues start to talk about their experiences. Inevitably, if anyone goes on
a list or database there is that initial worry about how often they will be
called upon. But I would hope that we will be able to double the number we have
at the moment."
Details of the project came to light following comments
by communities secretary Eric Pickles that councils should stop
automatically translating information into foreign languages because it was a
waste of money and a disincentive to residents to learn English. Tower Hamlets
Homes, along with other public sector translators, condemned his comments as short-sighted.
Kasia Beresford has a diploma in public service
interpreting and has worked freelance across the public sector, specialising in
Polish, for the last six years. She says Pickles' comments about the value of
translation were a gut reaction based on emotions that were neither
"rational nor sensible".
"People only look at interpreting as a cost
but we save money because our purpose is to enable communication,"
Beresford says. "There are techniques involved with interpreting: you
interpret in the first person, for example, you try to imitate the register of
the speaker, such as using slang if they use slang. People don't seem to
understand the skill involved in interpreting. When I interpret on behalf of a
medical patient, the doctor is always very positive, but at an organisational
level what I do can be completely unappreciated."
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