Lost in transition

Lost in transition

Even though Crapita didn’t bid for the contract, the Eye’s favourite outsourcing company still took over the job of providing foreign language interpreters throughout the justice service last week.

Crapita snapped up Applied Language Solutions (ALS) in December, just weeks before the new system was due to start, paying £7.5m for the company that had won the right to be sole supplier of freelance agency interpreters to justice bodies, including the courts and police.

Perhaps news of the sale hasn’t reached the Ministry of Justice, since there was no mention of the calamity-prone company in the announcement last Wednesday of the national roll-out of the scheme, which promised “skilled interpreters through a single agency, Applied Language Solutions”. Alas, not. Hundreds of interpreters with the qualifications necessary to avoid miscarriages of justice are continuing to boycott the scheme.

Private Eye, issue 1307, 10th to 23rd February 2012, page 32.