There are many reasons as to why I started this blog. Mostly it is because in the face of a changing market I felt interpreting had become undervalued. The profession was changing as a result and was affecting not only interpreters but also access for the Deaf community.
The hot topic between interpreters whenever they meet is usually are you getting enough work right now. Mostly, we’re not.
With spoken language agencies taking a lot of the health, council and legal contracts, there are interpreters out there who are now struggling to find work. It is not that the work has disappeared. Deaf people haven’t. It’s just a fact that Registered Interpreters are being used less. We are under-employed.
Over the years I have heard interpreters and Deaf people say community interpreting should be done by the best interpreters but is often done by the least experienced. Why do a GP job when you can interpret a conference? Of course all access is important for Deaf people but it is some of the most vulnerable Deaf people that need access to community interpreters. By ‘community’ I include medical, legal, mental health, social services, housing…
A community interpreter has to be prepared for anything. They need a large toolbox of skills to be able to give access to a Deaf person who may have minimal language skills, poor educational background, learning disabilities, mental health issues, a different sign language if a recent immigrant or maybe very little sign language at all. A Deaf relay interpreter is not always at hand.
Can an unregistered inexperienced signer have the confidence to know that the Deaf person left knowing how to take their tablets and that they understand their condition, symptoms or lack of them? Did they facilitate communication in a mental health appointment so that a Care Co-ordinator or Psychologist could do their job and know that their patient was safe? Is a Looked After Child really safe if a Social Worker does not get full access to what is happening at an appointment? Does the Deaf parents’ child get taken away if an Interpreter is not there to communicate for Mum and Dad? Do they then end up in court proceedings and would they have access to the justice system?
It takes years to train as an Interpreter and get the appropriate skills to deal with the above scenarios. The more you understand the intricacies of community interpreting the more you understand an experienced Interpreter is not an option but a necessity.
Why then have spoken language agencies been awarded some of these contracts? Do they really say they can provide interpreters for the unit costs that are being quoted? A colleague did some mystery shopping with some spoken language agencies and found, in horror, many were willing to accept her for work without seeing a police check, insurance or even any qualifications. Some were not only prepared to put someone with a level 2 (GCSE equivalent) or 3 (A-Level) qualification but some did not even ask for any qualifications at all. That is right. You can now be employed to be a Sign Language Interpreter without knowing any Sign Language. And get paid for it. This is how some NHS trusts and councils are spending their interpreting budgets.
I feel respected by other professionals for my skills. I think we rarely get this respect from Commissioners of services. Paying for a Registered Interpreter means other professionals can do their jobs properly and therefore safely. There is value for money in this alone. It is an utter waste of public funds that contracts are not effectively monitored, FOIs reveal some organisations are paying the same per interpreter booking but for people with GCSE language skills. Could you interpret a medical appointment with GCSE Spanish? On the other hand Registered Interpreters are struggling to find work. We are officially under-employed.
The implications of this are immense. We may see a profession that sheds its most experienced members, people may stop training (why pay for qualifications when you can get work at the hospital with level 2) and community interpreting will become community signing. Deaf people will not get access to services, including the most vulnerable Deaf people who need it the most.
Interpreters. We are being undervalued, under-respected and under-employed. But it isn’t just about us as Interpreters. We are just the ones that get to see most of these changes first. Sometimes that means we are the first to shout about it. Not just because we earn money from interpreting but because Deaf people are our family and friends. Most really good interpreters are part of the Deaf community too. With the really horrific stories that are coming out now about a lack of access, a lack of understanding by authorities and worse, mishaps, misdiagnosis and fatalities it is only a matter of time before all of this becomes more public. With community interpreting being decimated by commissioners and government policies what it really means is that Deaf people are being undervalued and under-respected too.
statutory
There are 4 posts tagged statutory (this is page 1 of 2).
Using a Professional is the Only Safeguard – Part 2
This blog is part 2 of 2. Following on from part 1, where the term profession was discussed, let’s go back to why interpreting is being outsourced in the first place.
Services are being outsourced to save money. Services that are deemed as being a ‘Back Office Function’.
This phrase is being repeated by the Ministry of Justice, by commissioners nationwide, by Ministers and by David Cameron.
Back Office Function. What is a Back Office function? Logic dictates it is a function that exists back of house probably in an office. This would include administration, IT, facilities management, ordering of equipment say.
Any intelligent being would surely not class interpreting as a Back Office Function. No. Surely it is a specialism. To be done by people who know how to do so. People. Wait… professionals who have been trained and have experience before being let loose in a courtroom.
Interpreting as a Back Office Function? It’s illogical. Outsourcing is now going way beyond what would normally be termed Back Office Functions.
Strange given the track record of disasters whenever the British government attempt to outsource. Capita got the name Crapita for good reason after disasters such as people nearly getting evicted when systems failed and did not pay out housing benefit claims in time. And bear in mind this is the company that has bought ALS and where the buck currently stops for interpreting services for the MoJ. As one publication has pointed out Capita should stick to back office business functions.
So why is the government taking the risk of outsourcing for areas others than more traditional business functions?
1) Crony capitalism.
This is endemic and epitomised in the coalition government’s support of big business over small or medium enterprises. This is despite what is touted in its reports. None of the framework agreements or procurement hubs now favoured by statutory organisations make it easy for the smaller enterprise to win contracts. Where the small enterprise is the specialist sign language agency, they lose out.
Sign Language interpreting services are becoming sub-contractors to the bigger spoken language agencies. Assignments are regularly being sub-sub-sub-contracted. By the time the interpreter is paid there is little left. Everyone up the food chain needs to make their buck. The result of which, at the other end, is that the statutory organisation comes away with little savings and interpreters travel the breadth of the country when there was a registered interpreter next door to the hospital sat at home unpaid.
2) Back door privatisation.
We have the Conservatives in government. They wish to privatise everything.
3) Ministers and senior civil servants need answers.
Outsourcing is an easy answer to coming up with savings rather than appropriately conducted research and consultation, with the caveat that information gleaned from consultation should be heeded. The word consultation has become a misnomer in the UK. It has come to mean you will speak up then be ignored.
Ministers have often said they lack skills in running large departments. One author suggests this is indicative of an eroded civil service with an overreliance on expensive consultants or specialist advisors rather than looking inward to creating those skills and utilising them.
As Peter Handcock CBE, Chief Executive, Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) before the Justice Select Committee said so eloquently:
“So it is partly the process of letting a new contract and putting it in place, but, but we need to do, frankly we need to do much much better understanding the potential risks before we roll these things out.”
An admission of the lack of understanding. Has the government taken any advice on the subject of interpreting services? It seems they have ignored much of what interpreters have been telling them through the various consultations.
Therein lies the explanation of why interpreting is now being seen as a Back Office Function. And what of the effect of this policy, why does it go so horribly wrong, especially where professions are concerned?
Unit costs get ever cheaper in the bidding war for a contract. Unless there are safeguards and standards in place enforced upon the contract provider the temptation is to employ the cheapest personnel and disregard quality.
Sign Language interpreters have seen it happen already in most NHS trusts around the country. Chaos caused by large scale employment of untrained interpreters by sub-standard agencies (usually spoken language ones, though some sign language specialist agencies are also to blame). Yet the NHS and the MoJ are paying for these services.
A colleague did some mystery shopping amongst some new agencies that had won NHS contracts in and around London. Scarily, they wanted to accept her on their books without checking any qualifications, any registration. They did not even ask for insurance or a police check. Some didn’t even care if she actually knew any sign language.
When contracts are awarded to these agencies, the provision of interpreters then becomes tokenism, paying lipservice to the Equality Act 2010. These are specialist services that are commissioned, monitored and evaluated by non-specialists without the necessary in built safeguards, which you would have if professionals were employed. Services commissioned from those that call themselves specialists but are not. Of course outsourcing interpreting services was bound to fail. And fail it has.
The government, local and national, has made a categoric error in outsourcing interpreting services across the public sector. With regard to the MoJ, when this is the kind of service you are paying for you are not saving £18 million. You are losing £300 million.