Politics

Today the Law Society Gazette published a letter from solicitor Malcolm Fowler of Dennings LLP of Tipton in the West Midlands – a solicitor with 44 years’ experience in criminal law proceedings.

His letter is reproduced below.

A dip in interpreter provision. And on whose figures? Even Capita is now hard-pressed to attempt to present a positive picture. I have striven again and again in letters to the Ministry of Justice, from the secretary of state downwards, to secure a straight answer to a simple though basic question: whose figures and reports is the MoJ reliant upon?

I am far from being alone in a firmer than ever conviction that it is Capita on whom it is relying. And this to the exclusion of complaints from my branch of the profession, from the bar and from the judiciary at all levels. After all the ministry, in its present arrogant and smug mood, can be having no truck with evidence of failure of its ill-conceived contractual venture.

Why else would it have forbidden the judiciary to disclose its own stark evidence of non-delivery both in terms of absent interpreters and abysmally poor quality among those interpreters actually attending?

This is a wasteful exercise, first of all, and what is more a recipe for miscarriage of justice cases that will come to light in the years to come.

Just as the MoJ failed to listen to experienced professionals, i.e. linguists, when it set up its Interpretation [sic] Project (otherwise it would not have abused the English language so woefully. Ed.), it is now refusing to listen to other professionals – lawyers – with decades of experience in courts when they warn of dire consequences if the present courts and tribunals interpreting arrangment with Capita Trarnslation & Interpreting continues. Furthermore, it is also rumoured that many judges are also exceedingly fed up with the dire performance of Capita T&I (posts passim), but, usually being rather shy of publicity, very few will actually air their grievances in public (posts passim).

Hat tip: Madeleine Lee

Yesterday senior mandarins reported to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on progress to date. However, PAC Chair Margaret Hodge MP expressed concern that within the Civil Service failure frequently went unpunished, stating:

“The mood out there is all too often people in the Civil Service don’t get held to account for performance and may get rewarded for failure; and most recently we saw the Home Affairs Select Committee report on UKBA where the head of UKBA – and this is no [sic] personal; it’s not for me to judge, but just hearing what Home Affairs Select Committee did – the head of UKBA was found more than wanting and they expressed surprise that she’d then been given the stewardship of HMRC. Now for the public that doesn’t establish great confidence.

Margaret Hodge later listed some of the more spectacular failures in Whitehall’s record of contracting out public services:

I remember the West Coast main line; that was a fiasco. I remember the MoJ interpreters’ contract; that was a fiasco in the MoJ. I’m afraid the DWP – you may think they’re improving – we think that the way they’ve handled the contracts on the Work Programme has been less than satisfactory.

For the benefit of Ministry of Justice mandarins and Capita Translation & Interpreting, the dictionary definition of a fiasco is “a complete failure, especially one that is ignominious or humiliating“. 🙂

Hat tip: Geoffrey Buckingham

At the end of last week, the New Law Journal carried an interesting report on the case of R. v. Applied Language Solutions. Applied Language Solutions is better known nowadays as Capita Translation & Interpreting, the not very competent custodians of the Ministry of Justice’s contract for providing interpreting services for courts and tribunals.

R. v. Applied Language Solutions itself concerned a disputed costs order for £23.25 imposed ALS it after a Slovakian interpreter arrived late at Sheffield Crown Court due to a communications mix-up.

However, what is of interest are the remarks of the judge, the President of the Queen’s Bench Division, Sir John Thomas, who expressed surprise at Capita Translation and Interpreting Ltd’s argument that it need only supply court interpreters on time and in the right place 98% of the time to fulfil its contractual obligations. Bear in mind at this point that 98% is the performance target set for the contract by the Ministry of Justice – a target that Capita has never even met once during the first 12 months of the contract (posts passim).

Delivering his judgment, Sir John said: “We cannot accept this argument…without [an interpreter] a case cannot proceed. It seems to us inconceivable that the Ministry of Justice would have entered into a contract where the obligation… was framed in any terms other than an absolute obligation. It is simply no use to a court having an interpreter there on 98% of occasions when interpreters are required, because if an interpreter is required justice cannot be done without one and a case cannot proceed.”

Sir John, the third most senior judge in England and Wales, evidently has more faith in the Ministry of Justice than some of us; it may be inconceivable to him that it entered into a contract with a percentage obligation, but that’s what it’s done.

Furthermore, Sir John would seem to have an absolutist view of the efficient administration of justice, first mentioned in Magna Carta to the effect that: “To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice.” This principle was of course conveniently forgotten by the Ministry of Justice when concluding the ALS/Capita interpreting contract (posts passim).

Earlier this week The Law Society Gazette reported that the court interpreting service provided by Capita Translating & Interpreting (formerly ALS) is getting worse, contrary to the emollient assurances given to MPs by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Minister for Victims and the Courts, Helen Grant MP, that the service is has improved and is continuing to improve.

Capita Translating & Interpreting has failed to reach its performance target after a year, resulting in delays in thousands of court cases.

Figures released by the Ministry of Justice show that the performance actually fell in January 2013 the rate of complaints about the service has increased since August 2013.

For the first year of the contract, i.e. up to 31st January 2013, Capita Translating & Interpreting’s overall success rate was 90%, compared with a target of 98% in the contract.

During the year under review, Capita Translating & Interpreting received 131,153 requests for language services; these involved 259 different languages. Eleven per cent of these requests “were cancelled by the requesting customer”, i.e. either HM Courts & Tribunal Service or the National Offender Management Service. Of the remaining 116,330 requests, 104,932 were fulfilled or the requesting customer failed to attend, equivalent to a success rate of 90%.

In its statistical bulletin, the MoJ said that “presenting a single success rate does not provide the whole picture on the changes in the operation of the contract over the first 12 months” (that sounds like an excuse to me. Ed.). In addition, the MoJ is claiming that the fall in performance coincided with the contractor reducing the mileage rate paid to interpreters and Helen Grant MP is sticking to her guns with the improbable claim that the contract with Capita Translating & Interpreting is saving taxpayers £15 mn. per annum.

Hat tip: Bristol Red