1 February 2016 by Malcolm Fowler
Court interpreting: lesson in failure
All credit to Monidipa Fouzder for yet another attritional contribution to the
scandalous running sore that is the outsourced non-provision of professional
interpreter services.
As has been asserted by more than one parliamentary
select committee, this has been an object lesson in how not to decant core
ministerial duties to mega-companies with poor track records of delivery. It
would be funny were it less serious and less guaranteed to wrench us back to
the future, with the next resultant miscarriage of justice case likely to hit
the streets any time now. For a nanosecond or two perhaps, the odd hand will be
raised in horror.
And so, at a snail’s pace, we are assured that
things improve. Who says? Well, Capita actually, since under its contract it
marks its own homework (nice work if you can get it; many a legal aid
practitioner would rather like that). And the £38m in savings on interpreting services?
Whose figures are these, since the Ministry of Justice is on record as keeping
none of its own? Yes, got it in one: Capita’s. And in any event, what of all
the costs thrown away in delays and aborted hearings? Right again: the MoJ has
no idea since it keeps no records, but vastly more in any event than the
supposed savings.
We must continue to watch both organ grinder and
factotum like dyspeptic hawks – and so we shall.
Malcolm Fowler, solicitor and higher-court advocate, Dennings, Tipton
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