Days before latest statistics for courtroom interpreting are published, the Ministry of Justice has revealed that the current monopoly service provider has paid ‘service credits’ on 44 occasions for failing to meet its contractual requirement.

Statistics published by the ministry show that Capita Translation and Interpreting has continuously fallen short of the 98% performance target stated in the contract.

Latest figures show that Capita TI completed 97% of requests for language services between July and September 2015, the highest success rate since the contract started on 30 January 2012.

Responding to a question by shadow minister for human rights Andy Slaughter last week, justice minister Shailesh Vara said service credits can be imposed on Capita ‘in line with the terms of the contractual level of 98% success rate’.

From the beginning of the contract in January 2012 until September 2015, Capita TI paid 'service credits’ on 44 occasions, Vara said.

‘The contract has delivered significant improvements so far and we now have a system that is robust, sustainable and able to deliver a quality service at an affordable level,’ he added.

‘Since we introduced a new interpreting contract in 2012, we have spent £38m less on language service fees.’  

Earlier this month Capita told the Gazette it will be bidding for only one of four lots of a new contract scheduled to begin on 31 October.

In line with the government’s stated policy for public procurement, the successor contract has been broken into four lots: face-to-face interpretation (1); written translation and transcription (2); non-spoken language interpretation (3); and independent quality assurance (4).

Capita has confirmed it is bidding only for lot 2, written translation and transcription.

The ministry will publish figures for completed service requests from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2015 on Thursday.