Public Accounts CommitteeSupplementary written evidence from Brendan Pells
I am gratified that my submission of 11 October was considered, despite the short notice. I trust that some of the actions placed on the MoJ will be completed in time for the appearance next week of Capita representatives. My further comments on the proceedings are as follows:
1. Martin Jones of MoJ made at least two references as to the importance of DPSI (Diploma in Public Service Interpreting) as an appropriate qualification for a Court Interpreter. When asked by Austin Mitchell how many of the linguists working for Capita were classified as Tier 1 or Tier 2 (of which one of the qualifying requirements is full or partial DPSI), Mr Jones said that he did not know, but would find out. He also estimated that less than 5% of the assignments were being fulfilled by Tier 3 linguists. Could the Committee ensure that Mr Jones does provide this information so that it is available before next Monday?
2. May I bring to the attention of the Committee clause J2 of the contract which reads as follows; “…The Contractor will provide management reports through the web based portal. The reports will be capable of importing into Excel and will include but not be limited to the following: Breakdown of available interpreter numbers by region, language, tier and vetting status; Number of new interpreters added per tier per region; Face to Face—Monthly breakdown of number of assignments per region, per tier, per language, per Collaborative partner plus total price…”
3. May I also bring to the attention of the Committee clause J3 of the contract which reads as follows. “…The Administrator may request data and reports on an ad hoc basis to assist with Parliamentary Questions (PQs). The Contractor shall within one working day of request by the Authority provide the required data or information.”
4. Anne Beasley made the comment that Capita/ALS were adding a “small” mark-up to the fee paid to the interpreter. I would submit that the chunk of the payment taken by the agency would be more accurately described as “substantial”. Assuming that MoJ is being charged £32/hour for tier 1, and the interpreter is paid at a rate of £22/hour, the “small” mark-up taken by the agency is approx. 45% of what the interpreter receives.
5. Martin Jones made several negative comments about the operation of the old interpreter booking system, and seemed to suggest that directly booking interpreters through NRPSI was no better guarantee of interpreter quality than the new system provides. May I point out to the Committee that whilst courts were supposed to book interpreters from the NRPSI, some courts ignored this and continued to book interpreters from agencies which used unqualified interpreters. I submit that a large proportion of the complaints received under the old system were as a result of using unqualified, non-NRPSI linguists.
6. Mr Jones mentioned the difficulty of contacting NRPSI interpreters by telephone, one reason being that they would already be working on an assignment, and would not be able to take incoming calls. He went on to say that innovative techniques being introduced by Capita would overcome this, allowing linguists to accept consecutive bookings by apps on their smartphones. May I point out a crucial flaw in this concept, which is that Capita linguists are no more able to access their smartphones during court proceedings than anyone else with a mobile phone, and that this issue could have been addressed under the old system by the simple expedient of the court booking clerk sending a text message or leaving a voicemail. I am sure that many interpreters have experienced the frustration of having a missed call which they believe to be a court ringing them up to check their availability, only to find there is no call return number, nor any voicemail message.
7. Mr Jones also described how courts were working with Capita to schedule cases so that best use would be made of the interpreters’ time. I submit that such a system could just have easily been devised under the old interpreter booking system. Indeed, it would have been cheaper to do so under the old direct booking system. Consider an example where four cases at a magistrates court are “stacked-up” with an average of 45 minutes per case. Under the old system, the court pays a flat fee of £85 which buys 3 hours of the interpreter’s time. This would be long enough to deal with all four cases. Under the new system, this would be classed as four separate assignments, and so the MoJ would be charged for a minimum of 1 hour per assignment, at a total cost of £128, assuming a charge of £32/hour.
8. It was clear from the proceedings of the hearing of 15 October that the MoJ has little idea as to the collateral costs they are incurring as a result of the roll-out of the framework agreement. One factor which has not been considered is that court proceedings may now take longer because a large proportion of Capita linguists are not capable of providing simultaneous interpretation. I shall relate the experience of my partner, a fully qualified, experienced NRPSI interpreter that attended a court hearing after being booked directly by a solicitor. As one of the many qualified interpreters refusing to work for Capita, she has had little opportunity of late to work in a court environment, and was taken aback at how things have changed. Before the FWA, judges and counsel would speak at a normal pace, making little or no allowance for the fact that the defendant or witness did not speak or understand English. This was not generally a problem because a qualified interpreter can simultaneously interpret what is being said, whilst maintaining legal accuracy. What my partner experienced on her last visit is that no-one now speaks at a normal cadence, but more slowly, a few words at a time, because they have become accustomed to dealing with the limitations of the linguists that Capita now supplies as a matter of routine.
15 October 2012