Politics

Last Thursday’s This is Total Essex website reported yet another interpreter failing to turn up – this time for a case being heard at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court.

A CHEF who accepted a mobile phone after it was stolen in a house burglary has been charged with receiving stolen goods.

Humayoune Elu, 36, of Duke Street, Chelmsford, first appeared in Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court on Monday but will have to return because he is awaiting assistance from a Bengalese-speaking interpreter.

I’ll forgive the hapless hack for ‘Bengalese’ (it should be Bengali. Ed.), but how much longer can Capita Translation & Interpreting be forgiven for continuing to waste public money and increasing the cost of the administration of justice?

I think we should be told.

Anyone who has read this blog regularly will know that the Ministry of Justice’s contracting of interpreting services for courts and tribunals in England and Wales has been nothing short of disastrous (posts passim).

Nevertheless, Government ministers continue to perpetuate the myth that all is well with the service provided by Capita Translation & Interpreting.

The latest exhibit comes from this written question in the House of Lords on 3rd June 2013.

Lord Avebury (Liberal Democrat)

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many hearings of the second tier immigration tribunal have been cancelled on the grounds that (1) interpreters failed to attend, or (2) interpreters attending did not speak the correct language, since Applied Language Solutions began operating as the Ministry of Justice’s sole contractor for language services in February 2012.

This question received the reply below from Lord McNally, Minister of State for Justice and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords:

Lord McNally (Minister of State, Justice; Liberal Democrat)

Statistics published by the Ministry of Justice in March covering the first year of the language services contract break down requests by tribunal type. Tables 5 and 6 cover data from both the first tier tribunal and Upper Tier Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal, and contains information on bookings which were cancelled and the bookings where an interpreter did not attend. The data are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/177042/statistical-tables-jan12-jan13.xls.

These show that there has been a dramatic improvement in the interpreter contract since the start of last year, with the vast majority of bookings now being completed and a major reduction in complaints. Our changes saved taxpayers £15 million this year.

Hearings where an interpreter does not attend may exceptionally continue with the hearing to consider any “error of law” issues which can be dealt with in the absence of an interpreter. A failure to attend may not lead necessarily to a cancellation.

There is no specific complaint type for staff to select if an interpreter speaks the wrong language. The tribunal will specify the language required and the booking will be offered only to interpreters who have the appropriate qualifications to allow them to interpret in that language. Occasionally, staff may not be given the correct information on the dialect spoken by the individual and a hearing may have to be adjourned. These instances are rare and are not recorded separately for statistical purposes.

The Ministry of Justice seems to be applying the philosophy outlined by a certain A. Hitler in Mein Kampf, i.e. “if you are going to tell a lie, tell a big one and if you tell if often enough, people will begin to believe it”.

The inhabitants of Petty France seem to believe the lie, but more and more outsiders are becoming increasingly sceptical of ministerial pronouncements. How much longer will the Ministry of Justice keep up the pretence before the train wreck that is the framework agreement consigned to the scrap heap?

The post below is reposted from Linguist Lounge and shows that the MoJ’s interpreting contract is continuing not to work and that judges are now starting to get very angry indeed with Capita Translation & Interpreting’s excuses. The ‘explanation’ of an interpreter being booked for a certain time and not turning up until later, if at all (posts passim).

The information comes from a barrister identified as JF.

Case details:

Date: 28/05/13
Place: Norwich Crown Court
Interpreter: Not Known
Interpreter booked through the sole contractor
Case: R v Morkūnas T20127248
Noticed by: Defence Counsel

What happened:

The above case was listed at 9.30 for custody time limit (CTL) hearing. The interpreter should have been there for a conference at 9.00 but did not arrive until 10.30.

The case was called on twice but the court could not proceed as no interpreter was present. The defendant had to have a conference with the instructing solicitor in English. The solicitor, having had many hours in conference with the defendant, was able – just – to adapt to his limited vocabulary. Fortunately, for complex reasons, the outcome had no practical implications for him.

My comments:

This is the usual. The explanation given by Capita was that she, the interpreter, had been booked for 10.30. No member of the Norwich CC staff would have made a booking for 10.30 as it is established over many years that CTL hearings are at 9.30 and need to be preceded by a conference. The knock-on effect was that the trial in which I, Defence Counsel, was committed in an adjoining court, was delayed. Fortunately there was no practical loss as late disclosure aborted the trial. The learned Judge did not appear to believe the explanation of the interpreter being booked for 10.30 and said enquiries would be made.

Under the old system there were a number of excellent Lithuanian interpreters who lived within 40 minutes of the court, were familiar with its practises, and have never, in my experience, been late.

The above information I have supplied is true
*Barrister name and contact details withheld by RPSI Linguist Lounge*

The mainstream media are now (finally) beginning to pick up on the asset stripping and hatchet job on the British justice system being perpetrated by Chris Grayling, Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor.

Earlier this week, Fleet Street Fox of the Mirror posted a piece entitled ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ It’s a pretty comprehensive analysis of what Grayling et al. are planning and the likely implications of their plans.

Included amongst the comments on the post is the one below from ‘Anonymous’ who’s a civil servant working in the courts service. I’ve taken the liberty of tweaking the formatting and capitalising the start of sentences (which the original author failed to do). The quote itself is reproduced by kind permission of Fleet Street Fox.

I’d really like to put my name to this, but as I’m a serving civil servant working within the court service I’m banned from saying anything about my job online (yes really). For the last 5 years the way the courts have been run borders on the imbecilic. I work in a fines dept and have been moved so far away from my original office I now have to commute for 3 hours a day. I’m not management, just regular bottom of the rung, admin worker. They’ve spend obscene amounts on consultants and “LEAN agents” while the actual work that needs to be done piles up because there simply isn’t the staff to do it. I despair of what this government is doing to public services.

The general sense of despondency that emerges from the comment is almost tangible, whilst the amount spent on consultants and their ilk and the general mismanagement both go to reinforce a couple of findings about the Ministry of Justice that are already in the public domain: firstly that the MoJ is not an enjoyable place to work (posts passim); and secondly that the MoJ is not an “intelligent customer” in the words of the House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee (posts passim).