The long-awaited report from the Justice Committee, a House of Commons select committee, has now been published. The committee’s inquiry found that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) pushed ahead with outsourcing court interpreter services despite warnings that the quality of court language services would be reduced.
Evidence presented to the committee strongly suggests that the MoJ did not have a sufficient understanding of the complexities of court interpreting work. Prior to the award of the court interpreting contract to Applied Language Solutions (ALS) the MoJ’s consultation revealed significant concern that quality standards could be reduced by the imposition of a tiered system to enable a wider pool of interpreters and by the introduction of lower pay levels. However, the MoJ pushed ahead with the contract and failed to anticipate or address the potential for problems with ALS’ capacity to deliver what it promised.
When Capita acquired ALS for £7.5m in December 2011 and began providing interpreting and translation services to HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) in January 2012, it faced immediate operational difficulties. ALS/Capita have been unable to recruit enough qualified and experienced interpreters, resulting in availability and quality reductions in court and tribunal interpreting services.
The situation has been exacerbated due to a widespread boycott of the new arrangements by professional interpreters. Capita/ALS clearly needed significantly more resources than it had to provide the service to the required standard. The company also paid lip service to the regulatory duties accepted under the framework agreement with the MoJ, but did not have the capacity to cope with complaints or to implement basic vetting procedures.
According to the committee, the most important priority is for the MoJ and Capita to prove that the framework agreement is capable of attracting, retaining and deploying an adequate number of qualified and competent interpreters to meet the requirements of the courts and tribunals.
The Committee has also condemned actions taken by MoJ which had hampered its inquiry. HMCTS issued an edict to its staff instructing them not to participate in the Committee’s online consultation, established to invite direct observations from front-line staff of the performance of ALS. The committee considers that the ministry’s actions may have constituted a contempt of the House, but has insufficient evidence of this from other sources to make a reliable judgement.
Commenting of the report the Chair of the Committee, Sir Alan Beith MP, said:
The Ministry of Justice’s handling of the outsourcing of court interpreting services has been nothing short of shambolic. It did not have an adequate understanding of the needs of courts; it failed to heed warnings from the professionals concerned and it did not put sufficient safeguards in place to prevent interruptions in the provision of quality interpreting services to courts.
The select committee’s report is available in both HTML (read online) and PDF versions.
This makes the justice committee the second parliamentary committee to condemn the way the MoJ handled the outsourcing of court interpreting after the Public Accounts Committee’s Chair, Margaret Hodge MP, described the process as “an object lesson in how not to contract out a public service” on the publication of her committee’s report (posts passim).