Capita still recruiting hundreds of Tier 3 ‘interpreters’
As you may be aware from last year, Capita changed its tiering system, putting many, but not all, un-qualified interpreters at Tier 3 for MoJ assignments, such as Court and Prison assignments and if they hold an Home Office IND, they would be listed as Tier 2 for Tribunals.
Well does this even matter? I initially thought it meant that only Tier 1 interpreters would be used for all MoJ assignments, and the Tier 2’s would be used for Tribunal work. But I was wrong. So as you can imagine at the beginning of 2014, Capita put most, but not all of their un-qualified interpreters at Tier 3 – this is Capita we are talking about; they don’t stick to the rules. Behind the scenes however, ever since then, Capita have been recruiting many more Tier 3 interpreters all around England & Wales. You might think that’s strange since they’ve put their old Tier 2 interpreters at Tier 3 now, and you would think Capita are trying to be more moral by giving the Tier 1 interpreters the majority of the work, but no, you were wrong. You see the thing is, Capita are trying to have as many interpreters as possible at every major city, way more than there ever was on the NRPSI (please note: not in the sense they’re recruiting/now have more DPSI/DPI qualified interpreters than the NRPSI, I mean more un-qualified Tier 3 interpreters). But you might also think why are they recruiting Tier 3 ‘interpreters’ because hasn’t Capita stopped sending out Tier 3 ‘interpreters’ to MoJ bookings, well again, you were wrong – because they are! The whole reason for this is, money, yes… profit!
Now let me just give you an insight on what’s been happening for the Kurdish:Sorani language. For quite a few years now, Kurdish:Sorani has been in demand in Wales and across the South East. So usually what would happen on the NRPSI and ALS, but not so much Capita pre 2014, was that they would send the nearest available interpreter which would be Birmingham. If the interpreters in Birmingham weren’t available they would keep looking until an interpreter was found, well this was certainly the case in the NRPSI days because the Courts and the listing officers weren’t operating a business by getting the cheapest interpreters, they were interested in getting justice by providing interpreters for Defendants and Witnesses, but for Capita this obviously isn’t the case, they don’t care about justice, of course they don’t, they are a PLC business, which means they have to keep their shareholders happy, and make as much profit as possible. So what Capita do is they send the cheapest interpreter, and if there isn’t a cheap interpreter available, then there isn’t any other choice than, you guessed it, no interpreter at all. The reason behind it is if they did send an ‘expensive’ interpreter, they would lose money, so it was pointless for them to send out an interpreter. So in 2014 (3 years in to the MoJ contract) Capita knew they had to send interpreters to most/if not all bookings made, so what they cleverly did was recruit as many un-qualified and un-experienced interpreters to their list of interpreters as possible, so that they would have so many interpreters in every part of England and Wales.
So what does this means in reality, well going back to Kurdish:Sorani scenario in Wales/South East England, I will now present to you what it means. So now there is a un-qualified and un-experienced Kurdish:Sorani ‘interpreter’ based in Bristol who now takes most of the bookings in Wales, mainly cities such as: Newport/Cardiff, where interpreters in Birmingham used to go, now it’s ‘interpreters’ who are closer, even though they’re not qualified and have never had court interpreting experience. This interpreter doesn’t even have a Home Office IND yet he’s Tier 2, which is totally out of this world; in fact today he’s interpreting at Cardiff Crown Court, which just goes to show Capita are still sending these ‘interpreters’. The thing is, there is a 2012 DPSI qualified NRPSI interpreter in Bristol who refuses to work for Capita, so if this was the old system, the qualified interpreter in Bristol could have been sent to all of the bookings in Wales and the South East, but no, what is happening now is that there is a unqualified ‘interpreter’ being sent to fulfil these bookings. But he’s not the only one that has been recruited by Capita in 2014 for Kurdish:Sorani, there has been another new ‘interpreter’ in: Birmingham, even though there are already 2 IND qualified, not DPSI, interpreters in the Birmingham area who work for Capita though they do have a lot of experience as they have been on the NRPSI, working for Courts and Prisons etc, as a Rare Language and Limited Assessment on the NRPSI. Also, there is another Kurdish:Sorani ‘interpreter’ in Leicester who can barely speak English, let alone Interpret, so he, again, is taking all of the bookings is the East Midlands/Cambridgeshire area, leaving the Kurdish:Sorani interpreters based Birmingham interpreters out of work, again. I know of one Kurdsh:Sorani interpreter in Birmingham who has left the profession itself because interpreting isn’t a job no more, but it doesn’t make any difference to Capita, just as you saw with the case in Wales, there is a fully qualified interpreter in Bristol who refuses to work, yet un-qualified interpreters still get the bookings, meaning it doesn’t matter if you boycott Capita, because it doesn’t make a difference. The best thing to do is simply to leave the profession, well I do question whether it is even a profession any more, but you know what I mean, save yourselves while you can!
This needs to stop, it is espcially sad for the defendants and witnesses in court and also for the qualified interpreters aswell. The only winners are all these new fake interpreters who get peanuts for their rubbish services. Kurdish:Sorani especially is being affected massively by all of this, with new 'interpreters' being registered with Capita everyday, it is seriously getting ridiculous now, even for Tier 1 interpreters working for Capita, day by day it is getting worse, less and less bookings for them. It isn't fair at all. Someone needs to put a stop to it... 4 years into the MoJ contract.
