Interpreting service has collapsed and AIT is booking interpreters direct
I receive calls and emails from solicitors offering me to go to Crown courts to interpret for defendants at trials. Surely, it is a court's responsibility to book an interpreter for the defendant and not the solicitor's. But because the courts and the solicitors know that many of the new so called privatised bilinguals are rubbish and they are not actually fit for the job, as a result the Judges or courts are allowing solicitors to hire interpreters from the NRPSI because they know NRPSI interpreters are fit to do court assignments and not ALS/Capita.
If at the end of the day an NRPSI interpreter is doing the job, then is there any valid reason for ALS/Capita to keep the contract? On the other hand Asylum and Immigration Tribunals are booking interpreters directly from their old list because the private company can't supply or the solicitors and barristers are not willing to accept a very poorly skilled bilingual. One Bengali barrister told me that one ALS/Capita interpreter does not know how to speak English. That barrister lost his client's appeal and he has lodged an appeal now at the Court of Appeal explaining the circumstances about the interpreter problems under new arrangement.
The situation has got much more worse now and barristers and solicitors are openly telling the courts that they won't use ALS/Capita interpreters and they try to book one from the NRPSI or APCI register. MoJ has claimed that the performance has got better but in actual fact it has got much worse and has collapsed basically. Otherwise how come after over a year AIT has started booking interpreters directly and calling interpreters while the case is running because the new interpreter can't do the job and is destroying the case by incorrect interpreting or no interpreting at all. No interpreting means when the new interpreter does not know the translated version and therefore can't interpret. I hope the MoJ cancels this contract immediately because it is not serving the purpose.
