Capita now offers court jobs to people not on their LIT list
Linguist Lounge has received the following message from a campaign follower today:
“I was contacted by Capita yesterday to quote for a 30 minutes approval hearing in Kent. They found me on ProZ.com.
I quoted £20/hour (minimum two hours), £10/hour travelling time (it would be about four hours from<>to where I live in London) plus travel expenses (using public transport - tube and train). That's what I charge when interpreting for solicitors. I only replied because I thought there was no chance they gonna pay it and to show them that nobody's really gonna work for what they pay.
To my surprise they agreed to my price! Of course I didn't accept the job. I told them that I had no experience working in courts.
No questions about CRB (I have one but I don't mention it on my ProZ profile). I'm also wondering what tier would I fall under as Capita's non-registered interpreter? How and who decides how much they gonna pay interpreter? It's obviously not what they say - strictly no travel time, expenses etc.”
On the 1st anniversary of the Framework Agreement going live across England and Wales, Capita’s online portal is reported to have a significant number of open jobs no one is willing to take. Performance figures are going down like a snowball on a steep slope, bound to crumble when it reaches the bottom.
While Capita interpreters are voting with their feet by not taking any jobs at humiliatingly low rates, Capita is desperately trying to get absolutely anyone to court as the message above shows. They are contacting people out of the blue, without checking their qualifications, experience or CRB certificates. They are contacting people who ARE NOT on their LIT list for MoJ court assignments. Such interpreters have not undergone any assessments and have not been assigned ANY tier! While Capita cannot show weakness and start negotiating rates again with their own registered linguists, I can only assume that the short-term aim of this move would be to fill a job, with a long-term view of getting such new candidates on to their books by agreeing to their rates initially, only to level them with everyone else’s once they are on the register.
This story just goes on to demonstrate several material breaches of the Framework Agreement we have been witnesses of over the past year. One year on, Capita is back to square one. Happy Birthday, but please no more unhappy returns of the day.
