In a previous post there was a description of the sheer number of spoken language organisations and campaigns and the resulting lack of unity. What is impressive now is the amount of interpreters taking a stand against the MoJ contract, whether individually or as part of these groups. The results of which have now started to filter down to the press with the rightful backlash causing chaos.
The ALS contract rolled out on 30th January. In the last two weeks there has been report after report of mismanagement, cases being delayed, defendants held in custody overnight as there is no interpreter, court staff being harangued by ALS staff, Indian call centres not being able to fulfil requests. That’s a short summary of what has happened and these events have happened repeatedly around the country.
Before each roll out of a contract, whether it was NHS, Police (CPS) or courts, there would be a local press report detailing the horrific expense. The worst of it has been in the national press with the xenophobic Daily Mail amongst others asking why all the foreigners can’t just learn how to speak English?
We’ve seen what the government’s media machine has done to Disabled people, labelling them as benefit scroungers to the point where they have been attacked in the street.
A piece in The Evening Standard pointed out, ‘There is nothing wrong in stopping fraud or imposing cuts at a time of austerity. But it is revolting to see politicians and the media collude to target people who just want to join society.’ The same applies to those who need interpreters whether they are ‘foreigners’ or Deaf. We have an EU directive 2010/64/EU, the UNCRPD and specific to the UK the Equality Act 2010, all of which are being willfully ignored.
Disabled people are less likely to speak out just as users of interpreters can often not speak out, for obvious reasons. The provision of an untrained interpreter is hardly going to help. Would it be so cynical to suggest this is why these groups have been targeted by the government?
So in the case of this MoJ contract, it is left to the interpreters to make the first stand. Congratulations should go to those that have refused to work under the contract over the last few weeks. Lawyers, barristers, magistrates and judges are now seeing the effects. Where we had reports of the expense of interpreters, the media tide has turned. We now have reports of chaos with the Beeb and The Law Gazette picking up the news too.
Furthermore there have been postings on blogs by lawyers and magistrates about their concern.
The MoJ are sticking to the theory that these are just teething problems. They are not and this contract is costing the taxpayer more:
Cost to hold defendant for 24 hours in custody: £769
Average daily cost of a magistrate trial: £800
Average daily cost of a crown court trial: £1,700
(figures from The Daily Mail and The Guardian)
Justice is not cheap. When you introduce delays into the system costs escalate. Rather than paying £85-£150 (half day) for an interpreter so the case can be dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible, the actual cost starts to run into the thousands. What exactly is the chaos surrounding this contract?
- More than half of trained and registered interpreters have refused to work under the contract – most people ‘interpreting’ are not trained or NRPSI registered (in my view*).
- This has left some regions devoid of an interpreter – the agency is asking interpreters to travel further distances, which without travel costs many are refusing to do so.
- There are some language groups with no trained interpreters willing to work.
- Interpreters were asked to undergo a £100 assessment and CRB check – as so few did, the agency is now using ‘interpreters’ – speakers of other languages who have not undergone any interpreter training, have not been independently assessed (as promised) and have had no police checks (as promised).
- Agency staff have asked exasperated court staff, when a booking is not fulfilled, to enter a cancellation on their systems rather than a failure to provide – this will skew the monitoring information for the MoJ’s review of the contract or any future Freedom of Information requests made.
- There are reports of basic interpreter errors – ‘perversion of the course of justice’ becoming ‘charge of being a pervert’ and ‘charged by the police’ as owing the police money (BBC).
The above points show that the contract is not only nonsensical but also fundamentally wrong. It goes against legislation, against human rights. It has caused and will continue to cause delays, inefficiencies and extra cost to the taxpayer albeit hidden rather than included in the cost of the interpreting contract. There are huge risks being taken of a mistrial and a lack of access to justice. We have seen two weeks of chaos so far. The Sign Language Interpreting part of the contract is reported to be completely rolled out from March.
If you haven’t been affected yet, you will be. We saw what happened in the North West as a Procurement Hub was set up and later as part of this set up ALS took over interpreting services with police forces. Work disappeared for trained and registered interpreters, including sign language interpreters or was offered at a ridiculous and unsustainable rate. Work was taken up by those untrained and unregistered as the cheaper though unsafe option. Some interpreters had to leave the profession or take on second jobs to survive. One police force eventually terminated their contract with ALS as they could not carry out proper investigations.
As the contract and the chaos continues to roll out will you stand up for your profession? As a Sign language interpreter you may think you have been unaffected. You are wrong.
Reports are already coming out of an erosion of standards (there is evidence of interpreters booked for part trials/tribunals), there is a reduced cancellation fee (from 7 to 3 days) and you will effectively be contributing to the possible demise of the profession especially if you are not experienced in this type of work. SLIs have RSLI as standard. Don’t be fooled. Spoken Language ‘Interpreters’ did not even get assessed, it may only be a matter of time before this standard slips along with the others.
Rather than collude with the providers of this contract, whether you are being sub-contracted or not, like spoken language interpreters we should be sticking together and voting with our feet. If you don’t make this stand, you will see what happened in the North West coming to an area near you…
*added after threat of defamation from ALS, see comment.
There are a number of inaccuracies in this blog however the key one that we must draw your attention to at this time is the statement that a police force “terminated their contract” with ALS. This is not true, which would be apparent had the article you have linked to been read properly in advance of posting this blog. A Judicial Review highlighted that a stage in the initial procurement process hadn’t been completed – this was not down to ALS or our quality of service. This missing step was subsequently completed as a result of the review and Greater Manchester Police continued to work with ALS throughout and remains a customer today. If you are not prepared to publish this comment then please amend your blog accordingly, as soon as possible.
Can you also explain your statement that claims most people interpreting within the MoJ framework are not trained? If you can provide factual evidence of this then we can respond appropriately and address the source of this defamatory claim.
Applied Language Solutions
@Applied Language Solutions – I notice that you have chosen to challenge the following sentence from the original article: “More than half of trained and registered interpreters have refused to work under the contract – most people ‘interpreting’ are not trained or NRPSI registered.”
You want the author of this blog to explain why they claim that “most people interpreting under the MoJ framework are not trained”.
Are we then to understand that you admit that most people you send to courts to work as interpreters for spoken languages are not registered on NRPSI?
Wouldn’t it be easier if you provided the following information to dispel any doubts about the workforce you supply to the courts of England and Wales:
– how many of your 3000+ workers have an interpreting qualification to work in the UK Criminal Justice System (i.e. the DPSI or MetPolice Test)
– how many of your workers have undergone your assessment
– how many of your workers are registered on NRPSI.
Just give us a strong rebuttal – that works much better than mentioning ‘defamation’.
And can you provide a factual evidence that your interpreters are trained? There is no need as their performance in courts speaks for itself.
Dear ALS,
Please kindly note that I have sent this letter to the interpreting project manager at MoJ and she has acknowledged receipt. Please read the following examples and I WILL provide proof in the form of the same people who were involved.
1. I have personally never joined the ALS and probably will never do, however they have been calling me to offer jobs with various police forces, which I have always rejected. Every time I received a call, I informed the caller that I had neither taken part in the ALS assessment, nor was I registered with them and therefore they must not use my services in violation of the framework agreement. I repeatedly asked them to remove my details from their system, which they failed to do until I wrote to their legal department. I was then informed that they had removed my details from their system. Even so, just the other day I received an e-mail about potential jobs in my area.
Clearly, according to ALS anyone who wishes to join them must pass their assessment in addition to any previous qualification such as DPSI, membership of NRPSI or the Metropolitan Police Test Certificate, which are all highly respected qualifications on their own. Only after successfully passing the assessment can an interpreter be placed in one of the three tiers depending on previous qualification and performance during the assessment. It is obvious that ALS became very desperate and not only turned a blind eye to their assessment, but also completely abandoned this requirement in respect of many interpreters. Take my example for instance. I had never registered with ALS and I had never participated in their assessment, neither did they know whether I was CRB checked.. Yet on their own admission, they had placed me in the highest tier i.e. tier 1. I have absolutely no idea how they will be able to justify this.
2. A friend of mine who is registered with ALS in tier 3 ( the lowest tier) has accepted two jobs so far and both jobs were tier 1. One of the jobs involved an interview with a rape suspect and I don’t know how ALS will be able to justify sending a tier 3 interpreter for a tier 1 job, which involved an interview in relation to a very serious crime.
The same friend was asked by ALS to interpret for a language for which he was not even registered or assessed, though he spoke a different dialect of the same language. When he made this clear to the ALS, rather than trying to find another interpreter, the ALS caller asked him to kindly accept the job even if he spoke a little bit of the language. The interpreter refused to accept the job.
3. Another friend of mine who had filled out the online form on the ALS website expressing his interest to become an interpreter has been placed in tier 2 without even realizing it. He has never taken part in any ALS assessment. He was surprised when he found out that he had already been placed in tier 2. He was even more surprised when ALS offerred him tier 1 jobs. How will ALS be able to justify this. Are they not playing with people’s lives? If they are, then the sooner you stop them the better for all. If you think they are not playing with people’s lives, then please let me know and I will make sure both of the people that I mentioned above get in touch with you and explain the situation themselves.
From the examples mentioned by the last poster would ALS like to make a further comment about its teething problems particularly considering the minutes of the NRPSI meeting last year and the remarks by Graham Anderson that “{he} insisted that under no circumstances would Tier 3 “interpreters” be used in these situations, and that they would actively monitor this.” ?
http://www.nrpsi.co.uk/pdf/NRPSI%20Meeting%20with%20MoJ%2029th%20Nov%202011.pdf
It is not as if the MoJ had not been warned. Interpreter membership organisations have issued one warning after another,. The Society for Public Service Interpreting and others have offered savings too such as those achieved by working jointly with Cambridgeshire Constabulary (25%). Most interpreter proposals have been made in the course of consultations with the MoJ and in writing. Yet they have preferred to ignore the NRPSI the National Register and use ALS (now owbed by Capita) as pereferred contractor. G. A. Makin chairman@spsi.org.uk
We are unemployed as a result of it all but it is not only about OUR money. I don’t know any millionaire interpreter yet. It is about YOUR and our money as the tax payers. Justice is not going to be cheaper when it is done by amateurs. We can save money without keeping people in cells for hours only because interpreters are not provided by greedy business that chewed more than it can swallow.
Stay together! REFUSE! Be proud of your profession!
I’m interested to see ALS commenting on this. And the borderline threatening nature of the wording given that this is just a summary of other articles I’ve read so doesn’t seem particularly defamatory. I think that unfortunately, if you put yourself in a position of making money at the expense of an inappropriate service then you also need to be prepared to defend it robustly. It’s failing and failing publicly and it’s garnered much media attention because people’s life and liberty are at stake.
It’s a frequently aired fallacy that interpreters are not united. All membership organisations cooperate and have made joint proposals to the MoJ way back since September 2010. We have submitted written proposals that propose how to save police time and money and have a track record in getting this done. The MoJ ignored our proposals and went for the most irrational way of going about things, adopting a monopolistic contractor and ignoring the recently improved national register.
“It’s a frequently aired fallacy that interpreters are not united. All membership organisations cooperate and have made joint proposals to the MoJ way back since September 2010”
Possibly true. But with friends like this, who needs enemies? http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2012/02/16/the-post-legal-wirral-interpreter-libelled-in-email-campaign-wins-five-year-legal-battle-99623-30337023/
It doesn’t matter how many police forces have been given false hope of cutting interpreters payment by %80, the reality is costing them hefty price and in the coming months the statistics will prove this delusion.
NRPSI interpreters don’t take any direct bookings neither from courts or those police forces who recently have signed up with ALS, interpreters are not nurses to be imported, DPSI exams only run once a year, so how ALS can increase number of qualified interpreters.
If ALS has the courage lets publish total number of interpreters who actually hold DPSI in English/Scottish law, I very much doubt it, we qualified interpreters are monitoring and get all the info about unqualified, non-vetted ALS interpreters.
The coming days will show how the truth unfold about the hollow cavity of ALS’s ability to provide qualified interpreters all the time.
ALS, what a mess. This has all been put down to teething problems, it is not teething it is terminal.
Over promise, under deliver. The courts are in chaos because of this silly agreement and the Ministry of Justice is just trying to protect the poor, hard working civil servants who have spent an absolute fortune organising this and, of course, don’t want to give in just yet.
Poor Lambs might not get up the next bit of the greasy pole when this goes down.
The booking system doesn’t work and never will, many of the ‘linguists’ they send to court are just awful.
So, we have had the teething problems excuse. Well, ALS had months of preparation for this. Where are the 3000 interpreters poised and ready for action?
Next the ‘we need to improve the booking systems excuse’.. Well, wasn’t that the big thing ALS offered, a wonderful booking/job-matching system? It just does not work. They are trying a flawed web booking set up which is the most inappropriate and stupid use of technology I have ever seen.
Oh, the best bit… Claiming that their interpreters, when they turn up, are being harassed by people monitoring them.
I would question how many have actually taken their pointless quality assessment so graciously organised by Middlesex University, or been vetted/CRB checked? From evidence I have seen, not many and they just try to book anyone at random, and I mean anyone.
Sorry, Applied Language Solutions are just incompetent and this will never work. Before their marketing drone screams ‘defamation’, I would suggest they study the concept of fair comment on a matter of public interest, oh and the fact that this is true (defences 1 and 2 in libel actions)
See you in court ALS, as long as I don’t need an need an interpreter, when we just go for adjournments until one of us dies, and don’t try to book someone from the National Register you so despise. They are not going to prop up this flawed scheme.
Excellent article! Great blog!
Registered Public Service Interpreters (RPSIs) are united and we will not take any direct bookings.
We are professionals and we should be treated as such.
Say NO to exploitation!
Great article. ALS’ comments on this and other articles only reinforce their inability to defend the claims.
Previously ushers in courts asked interpreters to show their NRPSI badges. And if you didn’t have it with you you would not be allowed to approach the defendant or the witness.
If you are a member of NRPSI this means you have an appropriate qualification, experience, CRB and anti-terrorism check, etc. This is a guarantee that this particular person (interpreter) is allowed to work in the justice system.
How things going with ALS interpreters? ALS claim that they use qualified interpreters for courts. Who check that? Do they provide any proof? What sort of proof?
How do ALS asses interpreters? How many failed during this assessment? Or all of them successfully passed that assessment? Who assessed the assessor? Was that assessor a professional who trains interpreters for justice system?
Where do ALS recruit those people? If those interpreters are qualified why don’t they sit DPSI exam or Metropolitan Police test?
Another question to ALS: did you have any experience in working with courts? If you did you should know that the time interpreter stays in court is unpredictable, from 1 hour up to 7 hours. So when you “designed” interpreters’ rewards (min 1 hour pay) did you understand that if you book interpreter for 1 hour it means interpreter can get another booking from other company/private person in an hour and if the court is slow interpreter will leave and go to do another booking.
You must understand that if interpreters don’t get their guaranteed half day pay in court they will accept as much small booking as they can to get their minimum to live on. And they won’t stay longer in court when they are asked to do so because they were only booked for a guaranteed 1 hour. So court will have to book another interpreter. Do you think it will save money to MoJ?
DID YOU USE YOUR BRAIN AT ALL WHEN YOU DESIGNED THIS CONTRACT?
ALS: shall we publish names of those unqualified interpreters being sent to courts on this public blog or would you rather have them by email???
Names of those imposters are starting to be famous already.
We can’t be everywhere but you are being watched closely – think about it.
We still have details of numerous failures in the North West from the beginning of your operations, then we lost count.. In the NW you managed to settle in and overcome the resistance but because you decided to go nationwide there is also more professional interpreters ready to fight and expose you.
Below is a letter sent to all courts on Feb 15th from Her Majesty’s Courts Service/Ministry of Justice. As you read this, you get the sense of the band playing on the Titanic.
The ‘contractor’ had months to prepare for this and simply cannot cope and never will.
The concept that qualified, experienced National Register Interpreters are about to step in to save the necks of a load of arrogant civil servants and an incompetent agency (Applied Language Solutions), led by a failed Dragons Den contestant is just laughable. What iceberg?
“We are aware of the problems that have occurred with the new contract and are monitoring things very carefully. We have agreed a number of actions that need to be taken with the contractor but we have accepted that whilst this action will help improve performance we expect it to take some time to reach an acceptable level. As a result we have decided that HMCTS must take urgent action to mitigate the number of hearings that are failing as a result of the contractor’s difficulties with sourcing interpreters at short notice. With immediate effect HMCTS will revert to the previous arrangements for all bookings due within 24 hours at the magistrates’ courts. Magistrates’ courts bookings should be made direct with the interpreter under the terms of the national agreement. It has also been decided that we will revert to previous arrangements for urgent bookings required for bail applications, deports and fast track applications in the First Tier Tribunal Immigration and Asylum and urgent bookings in the Asylum Support Tribunal. Discussion with the contractor indicates that reducing these urgent bookings should allow a significant increase in the contractors’ ability to meet other demand. We will be constantly reviewing performance over that period and these arrangements will remain in place until we are clear that the contractor is able to meet demand (and at least 24 February). It remains the firm HMCTS intention to move all business to the contract. Initial management information suggests that despite the problems we have experienced in some languages, the primary problem seem to be matching interpreters to jobs rather than insufficient supply (in essence if we can get the booking system to work better we should get a significantly improved service). We understand that some staff and judiciary have sympathy with existing interpreters. We must however do all we can to encourage sign up to the new arrangements – the new contract has the potential to bring significant benefits to both interpreters and the Justice System as a whole. Many of the interpreters signed up to the new arrangements are those that were previously serving the courts and tribunals, and more continue to move across.”
Saving! Quality of interpreters! Efficiency of services! and….. ppffffrrrrrrrr.
Teething problems are usually short lived, minor, not serious. ALS suffers from much serious illness – structure deficiency, poor planning, luck of integrity. Let’s just face it, one can not make soup without ingredients, saucepan and cook unless it is ALSoup!
I suggest we rather go on diet than eat ALSoup!
We will not accept any booking from courts, we are not meant to fill the gaps for failed ALS, shame on those who abolished National Agreement but when is desperate want us to help them, we will not accept exploitation. I thought someone when ignores others then later wouldn’t expect any help from them, MOJ don’t ask us for help.
Dignity is the most powerful weapon that human being should have it all the time, we only live once in this life, if we lose it we will lose everthing, so I personally accept to eat grass if hungry but not to ever register with ALS and never accept bookings from courts as long as to fill gaps for ALS.
NRPSI was established in 1994 and was the most reliable source of interpreters but MOJ wants to undermine it, what a shame!
Maybe an ALS representative would like to comment on this article as well? Any paragraph, I don’t mind 🙂
http://www.thelawyer.com/lawyers-slam-government%E2%80%99s-new-court-interpreting-system/1011420.article
http://www.thelawyer.com/lawyers-slam-government%E2%80%99s-new-court-interpreting-system/1011420.article
Lawyers slam Government’s new court interpreting system
16 February 2012
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/opinion/letters/language-barrier-1
Language barrier
16 February 2012
Just on this point..
“Maybe an ALS representative would like to comment on this article as well? Any paragraph, I don’t mind”
Perhaps the chap at Applied Language Solutions, Joseph David or whatever he’s called, could post one of his funny videos like the ones he has done on their Linguist Lounge site.
His monologues are really very, very entertaining, and it would be good to hear more of his ramblings.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/feb/16/courts-hire-interpreters-capita-failing?newsfeed=true
Courts given green light to hire own interpreters as ALS struggles to cope
16 February 2012
Obviously ALS’s PR strategy here with the defamation claim and the memo about interpreter intimidation is: ‘the best form of defence is offence’. Good luck with that defamation claim ALS. Although, your legal team might have more pressing priorities to deal with say, for instance, being sued for violation of the Article 6 of the Human Rights Act as pointed out in today’s The Lawyer article.
I am a NRPSI registered interpreter for a language that is in demand. I have received several calls since yesterday from Magistrates’ and Crown Court offering me direct bookings. I have refused all direct bookings, because I don’t wish to fill the gaps left by ALS. I would like everyone to notice the failure and I would like the failure to cost money so that the MoJ realizes that ALS is costing them money and not saving.
I for one have decided to offer a free service to defence lawyers. I am planning to leave my contact details with defence solicitors and offer to listen to the tapes of police interviews with their clients where an ALS interpreter was involved and find inaccuracies and believe me, there will be many of them.
This will give the solicitors a ground for appeal either the conviction or the sentence on grounds that false and missinterpreted evidence had been used.
Where I can, I will also sit in criminal trials and monitor the ALS interpreter and let the defence team know of any problem, of which I am sure there will be many. I don’t mind acting as a witness in any appeals as a result of my involvement.
There is no doubt that a large number of ALS interpreters don’t even speak English properly. I personally know some of them and even they were surprised when they were told that they had passed the ALS assessment. That is an assessment that nobody fails. Anyone who takes part will be put into a tier and start playing with peoples lives in criminal proceedings.
I will urge all my colleagues to contact defence lawyers and offer their services. We can even tell them to pay us once they have secured funding for an appeal on the basis of findings of ther clients’ interview tapes.
I have no doubt that this will not only help people get justice, but will also scare the ALS like hell.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/feb/16/courts-hire-interpreters-capita-failing?cat=law&type=article
Contract not working…
“Anyone else having problems getting an interpreter?”
http://www.criminalsolicitor.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8591
I am still working towards my DPSI qualifications and I have been approached by ALS many times. As much as it is a good exercise before exams I do not want to be a part of degrading interpreting profession. While applying for the law DPSI course I met interpreters without any qualifications being sent for MoJ assignments. I think that everyone who has a bit of common sense should refuse a job they are not ready/qualified for yet. Not to mention ALS sending amateurs that just happen to speak two languages fairly good…
Can ALS also confirm that all the interpreters it is currently sending to CJS assignments have been assessed, have had their tests marked and have been security vetted?
I hold shares in Capita Group PLC, and I am deeply concerned that ALS appear to have misled shareholders and the market by stating that they have 3000 interpreters on their books:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17009115
As part of a listed company, ALS have a requirement to be fair and honest in any publicly released information.
I have written to Capita, asking for an explanation. I would encourage other shareholders to do the same. Address your complaint to the Compliance Officer:
http://www.capita.co.uk/Pages/contact-us.aspx
Capita shareholders should also be made aware that the rates offered by ALS make it impossible for any person, qualified or unqualified, to make any kind of living and that ALS is likely to have misled both the MOJ and Capita on this subject. To give an example, if an interpreter carried out an assignment for ALS lasting one hour, with one hour travel time, and travelled by train from Manchester to Liverpool, he/she would be paid £20 and no other expenses. This might be the only job they might have that day. ALS specifically state that they do not pay for public transport costs. Capita should be made aware that this is contrary to the Government’s policy on transport. A train ticket from Manchester to Liverpool costs £ 16. The ALS interpreter would earn just £4 for a 3 hour assignment. This makes the contract unviable.
B Johnson talks of fairness. Does Capita know that ALS has singled out ethnic minorities for unfair treatment? A BSL interpreter would earn over £100 for the Manchester to Liverpool job and have their train fare refunded. B Johnson, as a Capita shareholder, should bring this issue to Capita’s attention urgently and make them aware that this blatant discrimination puts them in danger of being challenged under the Equality Act. Capita has many public service contracts and is no doubt familiar with the equality duty imposed upon public authorities. Are they aware of this discrimination?
The Crown Prosecution Service is going to start using this deal across the country from June 1st and more police forces are being put under extraordinary pressure by ACPO to sign up. If you think the last few weeks have been problematic you can only imagine what is around the corner. If the deal survives that is.
The agency, Applied Language Solutions, does not have the people to cope and never will. The only option is to bring in unqualified, inexperienced bilinguals. Where we are based, this is not an option. Although the pay rates may look appealing (averaging £20 per-hour), there’s little travel time, very limited travel expenses and of course the work volumes vary. Some weeks, lots, others nothing. On these pay rates, the interpreter could net less than £6 an hour from some jobs. Our local food plants pay £8 an hour, guaranteed for 40 hours per week with holidays, sick pay etc.
What has happened here is a Government department trying to save money teamed up with a small provincial agency which was losing money (£300K in the last accounts). It then put in a very low, unsustainable bid and promised so much. It can’t deliver.
If you read the agreement it is clear it was negotiated by people who do not have a clue about how courts work. For example in return for lower pay, the company promises back-back assignments. So, if the interpreter is booked for a 10am court, they will then be booked at 12 for a police station assignment, then maybe for 2pm with the CPS. See the problem with that?
So, expect more cases of no-shows, delays, adjournments low quality and lack of experience.
The most ridiculous cases coming to light include native Russian speakers interpreting for native Polish defendants (using Russian as the default). Then there’s an ALS interpreter who claims to be proficient to interpret in 8 languages.
Someone charged with perverting the course of justice was told he was charged with being a pervert and a chap who pleaded guilty to one of 3 charges after numerous adjournments, but did not know which one of the 3 he had admitted because the interpreter could not explain. Oh and the police are going to charge you now came out as ‘you will have to pay the police’! There are many, many more.
Then there are the ludicrous attempts by the agency to try to keep up with the bookings. It sent a Lithuanian interpreter from Liverpool to Boston, Lincs. A round-trip of more than 400 miles. The NRPSI interpreter who would have done this under the old system lives 5 minutes walk away. You couldn’t make it up.
The MOJ keeps repeating the line it is ‘teething’. The contract was awarded in August so there was plenty of time to set up. The company claimed there was a ‘lack of management information’ on short notice bookings, er?
Hopefully, the deal will crash before we get onto the next set of excuses.. blaming everyone else apart from the limited intelligence of the people who set this up.
One of the funny examples reprted by one Russian interpreter Olga: “I spoke to a police officer who was complaining about having to book interpreters for court through ALS. His point was that they haven’t got a clue about courts and how they work. Apparently ALS kept asking him exactly how long the interpreter would be needed for, the officer replied that he simply didn’t know. ALS said they couldn’t just book somebody to go to court for an unknown period of time and when the officer suggested that they book the interpreter for the whole day, ALS said they could not. I don’t know the language required, it may have been Romanian, but ALS failed to book an interpreter in the end, having offered one for sometime in the afternoon – a suggestion that was rejected by the officer. It’s an interesting insight into how they operate.”
I see. Yes, so the only way this will work is if the courts/police reform around ALS and the MOJ framework. So, it’s the judges, magistrates, police who need to change to make everything happen. That’s a whole squadron of flying pigs.
http://www.thelawyer.com/lost-in-translation/1011472.article
Court interpreters row raises spectre of miscarriages of justice
20 February 2012
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/moj-admits-teething-problems-interpreters
MoJ admits ‘teething problems’ with interpreters
17 February 2012
http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/crime/courts_left_in_chaos_by_interpreter_mix_up_1_3536695
Courts left in ‘chaos’ by interpreter mix-up
18 February 2012
Dear Haris Wahidi and others,
Please email the following people if you have proof of the incidents especially Louisa Carrad.
Regional Procurement Manager, MOJ
Julie Homer
Julie.homer@…
Senior Category Manager in the Procurement Directorate, MOJ
Graham Anderson
graham.anderson@…
Interpretation Project Manager, Justice Policy Group, MOJ
Louisa Carrad , louisa.carrad@…
Dear NRPSI Interpreter,
What I have posted here is an extract from my e-mail that had already been sent to Louisa Carrad. She acknowledged the receipt of the e-mail, though I don’t think she will do anything.
Many thanks Haris for your active role in the plight against this unlawful contract awarded to ALS.
They might not reply but at least to let them know we are monitoring the situation and no incident goes unnoticed, MOJ might think it can fool foreigneres but is completely wrong because we are smarter than them, we know breach of human rights, discrimination, exploitation and degradation, RPSIs have been subjected to all of it, which is shame on a country calls for human rights and justice whereas the justice not done by their doors to the people who helped their courts, I mean justice system for decades.
http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/local/court_frustration_over_missing_interpreters_1_3542391
21 February 2012
Court frustration over missing interpreters
ALS causes chaos in courts all over the country and calls it “TEETHING PROBLEMS”
HA HA HAAAAA !!!
If I would have shares in CAPITA I would sell them immediately,
The detrimental effect of this WORST EVER CONTRACT will be much bigger then anyone expected.
I do not care anymore, I have changed my career ( I am a landlord now) and have much more time for my family and myself and church and friends.
But I hope that the culprits of this disaster will be held responsible.
All the best to the British Justice System.
GET BETTER SOON !
X X X X
Re the three-tier system, this is a joke. Most interpreters get offered the lowest rate, including me. I don’t work for ALS and my qualifications are far higher than the DPSI because they come from the U.S. Federal courts and the court system of California. Before that I was a court interpreter in the UK (before the introduction of the DPSI), my father and brother were both solicitors and, unlike most interpreters, I am a very experienced legal translator and took a diploma in legal translation. I have also trained simultaneous interpreters (I am one myself). It is utterly insulting to highly qualified interpreters, including DPSIs, that ALS has introduced its own training and vetting system, but no doubt this is to make more money out of interpreters. I am only addressing this issue because everyone else has addressed the far more pressing issues.
http://m.youtube.com/?rdm=4phc78cbh&reload=3#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdXqqOEctG6w%26feature%3Dyoutu.be&feature=youtu.be&v=dXqqOEctG6w&gl=GB