Nanny Knows Best

Nanny Knows Best
Dedicated to exposing, and resisting, the all pervasive nanny state that is corroding the way of life and the freedom of the people of Britain.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Prats of The Week - Applied Language Solutions

My oh my, it has seemed like a gazillion years since I last awarded one of my prestigious, and internationally renowned, Prats of The Week Awards.

Thus, without any further ado, I congratulate Applied Language Solutions for winning this week's award!

For why?

Just ask a cat called Masha, who has been registered to work as a court interpreter.
Solicitors Journal reports that an investigation by the BBC into Applied Language Solutions (ALS), which has a contract with the MoJ to provide interpreting services to courts in England and Wales, identified a number of cases where interpreters were not asked for criminal record checks.

UMMM!!

I thought that in Nanny's Britain everyone had to have a CRB, even if they wished to just say hello to their neighbours?
As if that were not bad enough, step forward Masha.

The owner of Masha, the projects director of Talk Russian UK Neil McCafferty, said that he registered Masha with ALS:
We signed her up for the rare cat language.

We were absolutely staggered to start receiving emails from the company suggesting we take Masha the cat for a language assessment.”
One might ask why it is that Nanny's MoJ works with ALS, the MoJ passed the buck:
It is (Ken says: shouldn't there be a "the" here?) contractor’s responsibility to make sure that they meet this requirement.

We keep this and other contractual matters under scrutiny.”
Data released by the MoJ in May showed that from 30 January to 30 April 2012, ALS provided an interpreter in 81% of the cases where the courts requested one (the target being 98%). There were 2,232 complaints during the period, almost half caused by interpreters not attending court.

A spokeswoman for ALS said:
"If ALS finds interpreters without the appropriate information it will remove them from the register until this information is obtained.
If the BBC is aware of any interpreters working without the necessary information and is prepared to provide specifics, ALS will investigate and suspend or remove such interpreters, if appropriate."
Sorry Masha, it looks like you are out of a job there!

Applied Language Solutions, well deserving Prats of The Week!
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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:21 PM

    www.linguistlounge.org for more information about ALS and why Registered Public Service Interpreters won't work for them

    ReplyDelete
  2. \\A murder trial was halted for a day after an unqualified interpreter - filling in for his wife - could not accurately translate questions from a barrister.

    The man turned up at Winchester Crown Court 45 minutes late and concerns were raised after 30 minutes that he was not translating questions into Punjabi properly for a key witness during the trial of mother-of-two Rajvinder Kaur.

    He later revealed that his wife - the booked interpreter - was busy and he had come to do her job The judge, Mr Justice Burnett, was forced to halt the trial last Friday, but a similar event happened the following Monday when a female interpreter turned up and was not able to correctly translate evidence, the Southern Daily Echo reported.

    The court was able to carrying on sitting on that day with help from Kaur's junior counsel Sukhdev Garcha, who speaks Punjabi and who had raised concerns in both cases\\

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/unqualified-als-interpreter-revealed-to-have-halted-rajvinder-kaur-trial-7962231.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2:54 PM

    New Inquiry: Interpretation and Translation services and the Applied Language Solutions contract

    The Justice Select Committee is launching a call for written evidence on the provision of interpretation and translation services since Applied Language Solutions (ALS) began operating as the Ministry of Justice’s sole contractor for language services in February 2012.

    Specifically we will seek to explore six areas:

    The rationale for changing arrangements for the provision of interpreter services
    The nature and appropriateness of the procurement process
    The experience of courts and prisons in receiving interpretation services that meet their needs
    The nature and effectiveness of the complaints process
    The steps that have been taken to rectify under-performance and the extent to which they have been effective
    The appropriateness of arrangements for monitoring the management of the contract, including the quality and cost-effectiveness of the service delivered.
    The deadline for submissions is Monday 3 September 2012.

    http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/justice-committee/news/interpretation-and-translation-services/

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous1:59 PM

    What about the MoJ's procurement process that ended up with this shower running the show?

    "Caveat Emptor"?

    Surely they're deserving of a share of the Prat award too?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good point, it should have been a joint award!

      Delete