Translation firm’s poor performance charge
Date published: 05 February 2013
According to Oldham Chronicle
ALS faces new allegations of poor performance. Applied Language Solutions, which was bought out by Capita in 2011, has been dogged by controversy since it landed a £42 million Government courts’ contract. Justice Minister Helen Grant says the firm, since renamed Capita Translation and Interpreting, has achieved a 95 percent performance level. The Professional Interpreters for Justice group — made up of 10 interpreting organisations — rejects that figure and claims it is nearer 50 percent.
The group is calling on the minister to terminate the firm’s contract, and says about half of the estimated 800 daily assignments for interpreting services in the criminal justice system are not in the Ministry of Justice figures.
The group’s report on the first seven months of the contract – February-August 2012 – said there were 72,043 requests for interpreters by courts and 56,818 were fulfilled — equivalent to only 405 each working day, or half the number of requests.
In 2012 the Ministry of Justice said it would be monitoring performance after a report on the contract’s first three months showed 3,833 unfulfilled requests for interpreters and 2,232 complaints.
Company founder and chief executive Gavin Wheeldon (30) and other senior executives left the business last year.
What is your take from this?
Well, since the MoJ awarded this contract to one supplier, there were remarkable concerns and comments about the MoJ’s choice of one supplier as it was practically not possible for one provider to fully meet the whole of MoJs interpreting and translation needs as there have been fears of quality and compliance issues from the outset onward of the contract.
Lessons to be learned: A competitive or low-cost translation or interpreting service is not always the cheapest or best value for money. It is crucial that service users not only look for lost cost translation or interpreting services but they should also be equally concerned about the provider’s ability, reliability and quality of services.
