The House of Commons justice select committee is launching an investigation into an interpreting company who was awarded a £300m contract to provide interpreting in courts across England and Wales after complaints from court officials.
Applied Language Solutions (ALS) is facing a parliamentary investigation after an increase in the number of cancelled court cases and complaints from judges and lawyers.
The committee has called for evidence about difficulties that has emerged since ALS took over the responsibility of providing interpreters to courts earlier this year. The company was acquired by Capita after winning the lucrative Ministry of Justice (MoJ) interpreting contract.
Court cases have been cancelled or halted after hundreds of professional interpreters including BSL interpreters have refused to work for ALS because of poor pay and low travel expenses.
The MoJ released figures in May showing that there had been 2,232 complaints about the quality of interpreting in court since January 2012.
A MoJ spokesperson said: “There were an unacceptable number of problems at the start of the new contract in January but we have now seen a significant improvement in performance. We continue to work with the contractor to bring performance to the required level.”
