National Audit Office Report: ALS Consultant's profound reservations
The National Audit Office report into the Framework Agreement with Applied Language Solutions certainly makes for interesting reading, but is there a full transcript of the proceedings available anywhere? I am particularly interested in Section 1.13, where it mentions '...ALS did not tell the Ministry about what Mr (Brooke) Townsley described to us as his profound reservations about the validity of the proposed tiering system and about applying in-work assessments for interpreters who had recently completed their Diplomas in Public Service Interpreting...'
As he is Senior Lecturer and Course leader: Public Service Interpreting and Translation at Middlesex University, I expect I would not be alone to hear Mr Townsley elaborate on what his 'profound reservations' are, and why he did not speak out earlier when it was clear that the standards of interpreting in the justice system were collapsing.
I'd also like to know if Mr Townsley shares the views of former junior minister Crispin Blunt that his fellow NRPSI colleagues are '...grossly overpaid..' Of course, for many interpreters, interpreting is their sole source of income, there can't be many that have the cushion of a Senior Lecturer's salary to fall back on. As for Blunt's assertion that interpreters are trying to defend their '..six figure incomes..' I can now imagine where he picked up the idea.
