Courts need 10,000 translators a month but service fails to provide linguists for one in ten cases
Taxpayer-funded translators are being used in courts at a rate of more than 10,000 times a month, figures reveal.
The interpreters were called on to provide translation for 163 languages in criminal courts, tribunals and family cases.
But the figures also show Applied Language Solutions, which provides the national translation service under a controversial £90million Government contract, failed to provide an interpreter on more than one in ten of the occasions the courts called for them.
Between the end of January, when the contract started, and the end of August there were 72,043 interpretation duties carried out.
Just over half were in criminal courts, with nearly four in ten in tribunal hearings, including immigration, asylum and employment cases.
The most common language translated in criminal, civil and family courts was Polish, and the call for translators of Urdu was most frequent in tribunals.
The Ministry of Justice said that by August the company supplied translators in 95.3 per cent of cases. The target was 98 per cent.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance said: 'The Government needs to do more to ensure translation contracts are delivering value for money while actually tackling the root cause of the growing demand for interpretation within the courts.'
