The controversy surrounding the appointment of a central agency to provide interpreters for court proceedings shows no sign of abating, if a report in the Law Society Gazette is anything to go by.

According to the journal, a clerk at Ipswich Magistrates’ Court resorted to using Google Translate to pass details of a Lithuanian defendant’s next hearing when no interpreter could be supplied by the contractor, Applied Language Solutions (ALS). Ironically, ALS includes Google among its list of private-sector clients.

The inability to find an interpreter for the case in Ipswich led to considerable delay. It is not, however, the only one to be reported. The Gazette quotes Mike Jones, chair of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, as saying: “We have had reports from all around the country of ALS not being able provide interpreters. I’ve been told of incidents in Sevenoaks, Colchester, Leeds, London, Kent, Lincolnshire and Sheffield.”

The five-year contract between the Ministry of Justice and ALS began on 1 February and has already led to a great deal of controversy, including being described as a ‘fiasco’. The change is meant to make savings of around £18m from the £60m spent of interpreting and translation services. In December last year ALS was acquired by Capita, the outsourcing firm that has already substantial interests in both local and central government activities, including the Criminal Records Bureau.

The Gazette goes on to report another case quoted by Mike Jones. “It concerned a Romanian defendant who was sent from London to Salisbury and kept in prison overnight at Winchester prison because no interpreter was available. The next day the defendant was sent to Chippenham Magistrates’ Court. ALS was not able to confirm that they would be able to send an interpreter, so the court reverted to contacting an interpreter on the national register, who attended in the afternoon.”