Court interpreter service is ‘going badly wrong’
Hundreds of trials are being adjourned because of a lack of interpreters, which is adding to delays as the justice system struggles with record backlogs of cases.
Critics attribute the failure to provide interpreters to a controversial Ministry of Justice decision more than a decade ago to outsource the function. It is claimed that move drove down fees and standards and resulted in many skilled interpreters being unwilling to do the work.
The ministry is tendering for a new contract that will begin in 2026, but declined to disclose its value.
Since 2016 thebigword, a company based in Leeds, has provided court interpreting services under a contract that the ministry says has been worth on average £26 million a year.
The latest government figures show a total of 147,736 bookings in the first three quarters of 2024, with 72 per cent of those fulfilled, 6 per cent unfulfilled and 22 per cent cancelled. In the same period the absence of a court interpreter resulted in 604 trials being postponed.
In cases where the company could not provide an interpreter, court officials made 9,530 “off-contract” bookings in which they dealt with interpreters directly. That mainly involved using the National Register of Public Service Interpreters — as was the position before the contract was outsourced in 2011.
Ministry officials declined to reveal the cost of off-contract bookings, stating that it was commercially sensitive — but those interpreters say they are paid at least twice as much as bookings done through the contract.
Later this month interpreters working under the outsourced contract are set to launch a sixth strike since September in protest over what they claim are inadequate pay rates, poor terms and conditions, slow payments and problems with a booking and invoicing app that was introduced in June.
The House of Lords cross-party public services committee, which has been conducting an inquiry into court interpreting services, received oral and written evidence from interpreters, their representative groups and professional court users, as well as government officials and contractors.
Owing to “serious concerns” raised during its inquiry, the committee chair, the Labour peer Baroness Morris of Yardley, wrote in December to the lord chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, urging her to put the brakes on the retendering process.
Raising concerns about remuneration, the lack of data to ensure effective evaluation of services provided and the quality and qualification of interpreters, Morris said the contract has gone “badly wrong”. She added that low pay rates are “driving interpreters out of the workforce and making it an unattractive career” and highlighted the lack of minimum pay rates and inadequate remuneration when bookings are cancelled too late to enable interpreters to take on other work.
Under the present contract interpreters with level 3 or GCSE-level qualifications can work in some court cases including bail hearings. That is lower than the experience required to be on the national register through which courts can book interpreters directly.
Higher requirements are set to be introduced in the revised contract, but Morris said the committee is not confident that it delivers a plan to ensure an appropriate number of skilled and qualified interpreters.
She also raised concerns over ineffective quality assurance mechanisms, the absence of performance data and transparency, and the complaints process, which she said could “give a false impression of the quality of interpreting and translation services in the courts”.
In a later evidence session Morris told Sarah Sackman KC, a justice minister, that “no one who has been using the translation services, whether they have been interpreters and translators, people who work in the courts, barristers or solicitors, thinks that it works well … Not one person who sat in front of us thought that it worked well.”
In contrast, Morris said, ministry and court service officials and contractors “all thought that it is quite good”.
In an uncomfortable moment for the minister, Morris said: “That paints a problem … We have come to the belief that it is not a system that needs tinkering with. It is going badly wrong.”
Written evidence from the Bar Council and Law Society — the professional bodies for barristers and solicitors respectively — also raised concerns about the quality and shortage of interpreters, which they said led to cases being adjourned.
The society warned that the lack of interpreters “poses a risk to public trust in the justice system” and a “significant risk of miscarriages of justice”, adding that it may also breach defendants’ legal right to a fair trial. The council, meanwhile, observed a “significant decline in the quality of service” over the past few years.
Professional Interpreters for Justice, a group of 11 organisations representing several thousand specialists, argues that the desire to cut costs by outsourcing has caused the “progressive degrading of the pay and terms and conditions”.
Interpreters who have spoken to The Times dispute the £46 average hourly rate that Mark Rice, the managing director of thebigword, told the committee that its interpreters earn, claiming the figure is closer to half that.
Ministers have declined to pause the contract procurement, stating that it would be “counterproductive” and “lead to delay”. While thebigword said the contract, which has been “extended on multiple occasions”, demands “exacting standards”.
The company claims to have a database of 1,800 interpreters qualified for court work and says that “there has been no meaningful impact of any withdrawal of labour”, which has only involved a “tiny proportion” of its workforce.
