The Ministry of Justice is pressing ahead with a procurement process for new language services contracts, despite being told by parliamentarians conducting a major court interpreting inquiry to call a halt because the system has gone 'badly wrong'.

Sarah Sackman

Sackman: current contract 'not perfect but not performing too badly'

The House of Lords public services committee was so alarmed by what it heard during its inquiry that it took the drastic step of asking the lord chancellor to halt the procurement process for new language services contracts before publishing its recommendations. 

In an evidence session last week with justice minister Sarah Sackman KC, committee chair Baroness Morris of Yardley said: ‘One of the characteristics of our inquiry and the evidence we’ve heard, we can honestly say that from everyone who has been using the translation services, whether they have been interpreters and translators, whether they have been people who work in the courts, whether they have been barristers or solicitors, no one thinks it works well. No one.

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‘When we’ve interviewed the people who run the service, whether they be the people on contracts or the Ministry of Justice or courts service, they all thought it is quite good. And that paints a problem. That can’t be right. There’s something going wrong there. We’ve come to the belief it’s not a system that needs tinkering with. It’s actually going badly wrong for those who work in the service.’

Justice minister Sarah Sackman said the government had not been deaf to stakeholder feedback and has been making real-time improvements to the current contract. However, pausing the current retender would not be justified or help deliver further improvements, she said.

Sackman acknowledged the current contract is not perfect but said it is ‘not performing too badly’. Areas requiring improvement, such as reducing the number of off-contract bookings, repricing the market to ensure competitive pay, and the complaints process, are 'being built into the current tendering process’.

Pausing the tendering process, which is governed by public procurement regulations, would lead to ‘counterproductive’ consequences such as delay, the minister added.