Outsourcing and privatisation disaster outfit

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).

Today’s Express carries a story in which judge Sir Anthony Hooper – a former Court of Appeal judge – remarks on the Ministry of Justice’s proposals to auction off criminal defence work to the lowest bidder are recorded (posts passim). These proposals could ultimately see the criminal legal aid system run by corporations like London 2012 Olympics security fiasco specialists G4S and trucking giant Eddie Stobart.

As a precedent for the kind of chaos m’lud foresees under the criminal legal aid proposals, Sir Anthony cites the disaster that is the courts and tribunals interpreting service farmed out to Capita Translation & Interpreting (posts passim):

We have already seen what has happened when the Government appointed a single company to provide all the interpreters for courts around the country. It has not worked.

Regarding the criminal legal aid proposals themselves, Sir Anthony doesn’t pull any punches and foresees miscarriages of justice ahead:

The purpose of our criminal justice system is to acquit the innocent and convict the guilty. This requires a competent prosecutor, competent defence advocate and competent judge. If you take any of these elements away, the results will be costly and potentially disastrous, with innocent people being convicted and potentially dangerous individuals wrongly acquitted.

Under the Ministry of Justice’s proposals (currently out for consultation. Ed.), misleading entitled ‘Transforming Legal Aid’, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling wants to cut £220 mn. from the annual £2 bn. legal aid budget by tendering contracts to 400 firms and mega law shops in England and Wales. People unable to afford their own solicitor will be allotted one by the state, thus removing the all-important element of choice (isn’t the government trying to increase choice in other parts of the public sector such as the NHS? Ed.). Legal advisers appointed under that system will receive a single fixed fee to represent a client, irrespective of whether the client pleads guilty, raising fears that there will be little incentive to conduct a defence properly.

This was also criticised by Sir Anthony, who declared: “I’m afraid we are abandoning quality and replacing it with the lowest bid.”

There’s been more reaction to the Nottingham Crown Court murder case interpreter no-show last week (posts passim).

As previously mentioned, Northampton North MP Michael Ellis stated he was going raise the matter of Capita’s woeful service under its courts and tribunals interpreting contract with the Secretary of State for Justice, Christopher Grayling, as in Mr Ellis’ opinion the service was ‘out of control‘.

Mr Ellis has now contacted Chris Grayling, as has been reported by the Northampton Herald & Post:

Mr Ellis said Mr Grayling agreed to look into the matter.

He said: “Mr Grayling was concerned and said he would be looking into it and would take appropriate action in due course.”

In my experience, “looking into it” and “take appropriate action in due course” can be paraphrased as a “polite brush off“. If Mr Ellis doesn’t understand what a polite brush off is, in plainer language Grayling was actually saying: “I couldn’t give a toss“.

After all, Chris Grayling is far too busy at the moment taking the wrecking ball to criminal legal aid (posts passim) and trashing the probation service.

Interpreter organisations, which have united as Professional Interpreters for Justice, have rejected the amended terms introduced by Capita from 1st May in a bid to attract more of their members to work in courts and tribunals. The Justice Minister, they say, is hiding behind this ‘new deal’ in a bid to distract attention from continuing poor performance and is not being honest regarding Government statistics which do not tell the whole story.

Incidences of interpreter ‘no shows’ and poor quality interpreting at courts and police stations across the UK continue to flood in every day. They include the postponement of a hearing in a quadruple murder case at Nottingham Crown Court on 10th May when a Mandarin interpreter booked for defendant Anxiang Du didn’t arrive, prompting High Court Judge Mr Justice Julian Flaux to label the outsourcing company ‘an absolute disgrace‘ and Northampton North MP Michael Ellis to say it showed the service was ‘out of control‘.

According to Professional Interpreters for Justice, the Justice Ministry’s own statistical report about the contract doesn’t give the whole picture as it does not report on the large number of interpreting assignments being arranged directly by court clerks who are bypassing Capita due to frustration with the system.

Professional Interpreters for Justice also claim that Justice Minister Helen Grant MP is wrong in stating that the recently announced changes to payments are “what interpreters want” in her report of 25th April to MPs, as interpreters have repeatedly stated the opposite in meetings held with the Ministry in recent weeks.

Interpreters were invited to meetings where proposals for pay adjustments were presented. They stated they were not interested in incentives, but instead wanted the Capita contract dropped as it disregards the importance of having professionally qualified interpreters to ensure a fair trial where defendants and witnesses do not speak English.

On behalf of Professional Interpreters for Justice, Keith Moffitt, the Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, says: “Interpreters do not want to be persuaded to work under the Capita contract and those invited to the meetings told the Ministry of Justice exactly that. Unfortunately, these weak proposals will do nothing to improve the poor performance which is clear will continue under the contract with Capita.”

Professional Interpreters for Justice, which represents ten groups, is angry that Helen Grant MP has brushed off the highly critical Justice Select Committee report without putting in place measures needed to address the failings, which have been described as ‘nothing short of shambolic’.

Paul Wilson, Chief Executive of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI), says: “We are ready to work on meaningful reforms once the Ministry of Justice cancels the contract with Capita. The adjustments in pay and other measures suggested by the Minister in her report are an attempt to deny the failure of the Framework Agreement and do not address many of the key recommendations set out by the Justice Select Committee.”

The Ministry of Justice has been repeatedly criticised for signing a four year Framework Agreement for language services with Applied Language Solutions (ALS), which was acquired by Capita in December 2011 and now operates as Capita Translation and Interpreting.

Professional Interpreters for Justice will be writing to the Justice Select Committee and the Public Accounts Committee to set out their concerns regarding the Minister’s apparent disregard for its recommendations and are calling for a parliamentary debate in relation to the Capita / MoJ Framework Agreement.

More details have now emerged about the postponement of a court hearing at Nottingham Crown Court on Friday for Anxiang Du, a Chinese businessman accused of stabbing a family of four to death in Northampton, due to the absence of a Mandarin interpreter, which was described at the time as “an absolute disgrace” by the judge, Mr Justice Julian Flaux (posts passim).

The judge has requested the attendance of an interpreter and on this particular point yesterday’s Express informed its readers as follows:

The clerk at Nottingham Crown Court said he had been told it was “not worthwhile” for an interpreter to turn up.

However, this version of events is disputed by Capita, as can be seen from the extract below from a report in Friday’s Northampton Chronicle and Echo:

A Capita spokesman said: “After the original interpreter booked to attend the hearing was unable to attend, Capita worked to secure a replacement.

“The replacement interpreter could not attend until 2.30pm and we communicated this, in good time, to the court.

“Capita at no time refused to arrange an interpreter to attend Nottingham Crown Court on cost or any other grounds.”

From the above quotation from the anonymous Capita spokesman, it is quite apparent that Capita is calling into question the honesty and integrity of the Nottingham Crown Court clerk or to put it into plainer English alleging the clerk is lying.

In my experience, clerks to the court are persons of the highest probity, whose duties according to Wikipedia include the following:

The Court Clerk is a critical safeguard for integrity of the courts. In most courts, only the clerk, but not a judge, is the keeper of the Seal of the Court. The clerk is also required to attest/authenticate judicial records, to render them such that command “full faith and credit”.

Who do you think is more likely to be lying: a crown court official with no axe to grind or a failing contractor incapable of meeting performance targets (posts passim) and trying to save face?

The evidence that Capita is incapable of providing an adequate interpreting service for courts and tribunals in England and Wales continues to pile up.

The latest failure comes from Nottingham where a court hearing for Anxiang Du, a Chinese businessman accused of stabbing a family of four to death in Northampton, was adjourned today because no Mandarin intrepreter was sent to the proceedings, according to the Northampton Chronicle.

At the hearing at Nottingham Crown Court, Mr Justice Julian Flaux explained that he had asked for an interpreter to be booked. However, he said Capita had indicated that it was not worth sending an interpreter as they “would not make enough money” from the hearing.

Mr Justice Flaux is reported to have said: “To say that the presiding judge of the court is annoyed about this is an understatement.” In addition, he ordered Capita to provide a written explanation giving their account of their failure to supply an interpreter for the proceedings.

The plea and case management hearing has now been set provisionally for 19th July, with the trial due to begin on 12th November.

A Mandarin interpreter did eventually arrive at the court at about 2.30pm, but the hearing had already been adjourned by then.