Analysis and Comment
The Home Office's piecemeal and ineffective approach to foreign language interpreting and translation means immigration and border staff having to muddle through potentially life-changing interviews with non-English speakers by relying on inappropriate interpreters, Google Translate or attempts "to scrape by in English", say watchdogs.
Charities, councils and NGOs have had to step in to translate important information about coronavirus for people whose English is weak. Despite warnings from charities, the government's official public information campaign has failed to create enough material in non-English languages.
A 2012 report based on FOIs found that NHS trusts (that responded) spent £23.3m on translation services in 2010/11. We don’t have recent or complete figures for how much the NHS has spent on translators because no one collects that information. We can’t find a reliable source for the 128 languages figure.
This case is a reminder that a whistleblowing claim will fail where the worker has made a disclosure purely in their own self-interest – a protected disclosure must also have wider implications, affecting other people, and be regarded as in the public interest, for the worker to be protected as a 'whistleblower'.
