Outsourcing and privatisation disaster outfit

Capita Translating & Interpreting has been ordered to pay costs of £16,000 by judge Sir James Munby, president of the family division, over its failure to provide interpreters seven times in the course of a single adoption case, The Guardian reports.

The case in question was initiated in the family court in 2012. On six occasions at Dover Family Proceedings Court and Canterbury County Court, Capita T&I’s interpreters failed to appear or arrived too late, forcing the abandonment of hearings at which the Slovak-speaking parents were contesting the removal of their children. When the case was transferred to the High Court in London in May 2014 to be heard by Sir James, Capita T&I’s interpreters once again failed to appear. He was forced to adjourn the proceedings and ordered that HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) should provide interpreters instead.

In his judgement (PDF) Sir James states:

There have been serial failures by Capita in this case against a background of wider systemic problems… [These were] not minor but extensive, and, at two different stages of the litigation, they had a profound effect on the conduct of the proceedings.

Sir James ordered Capita to pay Kent County Council £15,927.36.

Yesterday, the Law Gazette website reported that 3 years into its courts and tribunals interpreting contract with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Capita Translation & Interpreting has yet to meet its key performance target – that of the percentage of requests filled for the provision of court interpreters.

According to the latest figures released by the MoJ, Capita Translation & Interpreting completed 94.8% of requests for language services in the 3rd quarter (July to September) of 2014, i.e. well short of the 98% target specified in its contract.

The Ministry of Justice said this was the hapless outsourcer’s highest success rate since the contract started in 2012.

Capita Translation & Interpreting is supposed to hit that 98% target every month and has yet to meet it at all in one single month over the last 3 years.

There’s a phrase for this: abject failure.

However, the MoJ seems to have a particular blind spot for its pet contractor’s pathetic performance. Courts minister Shailesh Vara said the interpreting contract had continued to deliver significant improvements since being introduced to tackle inefficiencies and inconsistencies (my weasel words detector is working overtime. Ed.).

Others involved in the administration of justice differ radically from the MoJ stance.

The Law Society said it was “shocking” that after nearly 3 years of the MoJ having a sole provider, the service was still failing to reach its performance target.

“A lack of available interpreters costs time and causes unnecessary adjournments, resulting in avoidable distress to victims and inconvenience to witnesses,” the Society said.

Furthermore, Shadow justice minister Andy Slaughter said it was shocking the government was unable to get a grip after three years into the contract.

I cannot disagree with either the Law Society or Mr. Slaughter. Had my failure to meet targets been of the order of that of Capita Translation & Interpreting, I would not have survived the last quarter of a century as a freelance linguist and been consigned to the dole queue long since.

You should seriously think of showing Capita T&I the door, MoJ. If they haven’t been up to the job for the last 3 years, what makes you think they’ll ever change?

A Latvian man spent 4 weeks in jail for an offence that would normally have attracted a non-custodial sentence, the Shropshire Star reports.

Rolands Etjantens pleaded guilty on 8th December to a charge of common assault, but was remanded in custody by Telford magistrates to await assessment by the probation service to see if he was suitable for community punishment.

According to his solicitor, Etjantens’ lack of English also meant he was not suitable for unpaid work in the community or supervision by the probation service as both of these would also require the use of interpreters.

District Judge Andrew King ultimately sentenced Etjantens, of no fixed abode, to 42 days in prison, meaning that he would be released within a few days.

The Law Society Gazette reports today on Capita’s failures to provide interpreters for Cardiff Crown Court.

Liu Sun was taken to Cardiff Crown Court on 16th July after being arrested on a warrant in relation to offences of importing prohibited goods. She denies the charges.

His Honour Judge Burr adjourned the case until the following day (17th July) as no Mandarin interpreter had been provided by Capita.

When the case returned to court on 17 July there was still no interpreter, following which the judge – possibly in desperation – asked a defence barrister to trawl Cardiff’s Chinese restaurants to find an interpreter.

However, after 2 consecutive days of failures, Capita did manage to provide an interpreter when the defendant was brought to court for the third time.

The same report states that a similar problem had occurred at the same court on 15th July when the case of another Chinese defendant, Liu Guiying, had to be adjourned.

Capita naturally denies there have been any failures in Cardiff. A Capita spokeswoman is reported to have stated the company “does not have a record of unfulfilled bookings for Cardiff Crown Court that match the name and dates provided,” adding that for the second case – that of Liu Guiying – Capita assigned an interpreter but that the court had made the booking for the wrong time (Capita blaming courts for its own failures is a ruse that’s been used before. Ed.). The spokeswoman also remarked that the interpreter could not make the revised time, as well as stating that Capita “continued to try and source an alternative interpreter up until the day of the booking and kept the court fully informed throughout”.

Update 30/07/2014: This story was reported on the Daily Mirror’s website yesterday. In the Mirror’s piece, Shadow Justice Minister Andy Slaughter MP is quoted as saying; “This is the latest example of how the criminal justice system under David Cameron has descended into a complete farce.“