12 September by Owen Bowcott
Court interpreting criticised as 'wholly
inadequate' in damning NAO report
The Ministry of Justice's (MoJ) privatisation of
court interpreting services became "fully operational before it
was ready" and was initially "wholly inadequate", according to a
highly critical report by the National Audit Office.
The monopoly granted to Applied Language Solutions (ALS), a subsidiary of
the service provider Capita, for courtroom work throughout England and Wales is
still being boycotted by large numbers of professional
interpreters.
Although the previous system was described as unsatisfactory, the NAO study condemns the
Ministry of Justice for underestimating the risks involved, ignoring the
dissatisfaction of skilled interpreters and failing to check whether the firm
had sufficient qualified staff.
The department's due diligence checks on ALS's bid were "not
thorough enough" and the company's initial performance led to many trials
being disrupted, the report states.
ALS failed to comply with contractual obligations and more than 5,000
complaints about the service were made in the six months after it began in late
January.
"ALS did not have enough staff to deal with bookings and
complaints," the NAO report finds, "and some [court staff] calls were
routed to the company's Indian call centre, against the terms of the contract.
Some trials and legal procedures were disrupted.
"In the first quarter of 2012, 182 trials in magistrates
courts were recorded as ineffective because of interpreter availability issues.
Though small, this was almost double the number recorded for the same period
last year," the report said."The ministry did not warn courts,
judges, magistrates and other affected parties about the shortage of
interpreters nor tell them to expect any other major problems.
"The contract requires all interpreters to have enhanced Criminal
Records Bureau checks. However, many interpreters gave ALS evidence only of
standard clearance. ALS did not tell the ministry about this. And specifically
regarding claims about experience, ALS did not check, even by sampling, the
assertions individuals made about having prior public-sector interpreting
experience."
Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the public accounts committee, said:
"It is appalling that the ministry awarded ALS a £90m contract to provide
a service essential to ensuring the proper administration of justice that was
clearly beyond this company's ability to deliver.
"The ministry overlooked its own due diligence process, which
showed ALS was simply too small to shoulder a contract of this value. The
ministry also took no account of the resolve of many experienced interpreters
not to work for this company. Against a target of 98%, ALS supplied an
interpreter in only 58% of hearings in February 2012.
"This unacceptably poor performance led to courtroom chaos,"
the report saidIt forced court staff to interrupt their core duties to find
interpreters at short notice and triggered a steep rise in the number of
abandoned trials … ALS could not even guarantee that interpreters had undergone
mandatory criminal records checks."
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "The National Audit Office
is clear that the Ministry of Justice had strong reasons for changing the old
interpreter booking system, which was inadequate in several respects. We accept
that there were problems at the start of the new contract in January but we
have now seen a very significant improvement in performance and are confident
that this trend is continuing.
"Figures in the NAO report show that 95% of bookings are now being
filled, while complaints have fallen dramatically and we are continuing to push
for further improvement. The contract is expected to save the Ministry of
Justice £15m a year and we remain confident that these savings will be
made."
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