Regulating the interpreting profession
The NRPSI is a private sector company that maintains a list of interpreters and translators available for public-service commissions in the UK. It is funded entirely by fees paid by the professionals whom it endorses. Numbering about 1,700, they are a small minority of the profession.
It is not a commercial enterprise funded by fees paid by its clients (unless you consider the linguists on its register to be its clients). But do not be fooled into thinking that the NRPSI is a public regulatory agency, or that it is a representative organization for the interpreting or translating profession.
The NRPSI wants the interpreters on its list to have exclusive access to public service assignments. It seeks to achieve this by lobbying for "protection of title" - a pseudo-official way of getting its registrants, alone, entitled to accept those assignments.
There are other companies - language service businesses - that also maintain lists of interpreters and translators available for public commissions. However, they are not making any such demand for exclusivity on behalf of the linguists.on their books.
The NRPSI has spoken out against the Ministry of Justice "outsourcing" such work. There have certainly been well-documented problems with such "outsourcing." However, the NRPSI is also arguing for outsourcing. It wants the selection of linguists to be outsourced to it, instead of them being contracted directly by public authorities. The NRPSI wants to take over the task of determining who is qualified to undertake such tasks - and the people it considers qualified to do those tasks are the people who pay the fees that are its sole revenue source.
There might be a good argument for a public regulatory agency in this area, but the NRPSI is not it.
The NRPSI claims the linguists on its books are the best in the field. It bases this to a great extent on peer-accreditation - often awarded by the CIOL. Please note that the CIOL was instrumental in setting up the NRPSI in the first place and the two organizations maintain a close connection. The CIOL, like the NRPSI, is a private-sector organization funded by fees from the minority of the profession that chooses to engage with it.
