Bullying translators blamed for chaos

Date published: 02 November 2012


THE former boss of a controversial, Delph-based court translation company has blamed interpreters for failures in the service.

Gavin Wheeldon claimed translators, resistant to new working conditions, assaulted and spat at colleagues to intimidate them into turning down work.

The former CEO of Applied Language Solutions admitted he knew there would be problems with the contract to provide court interpreters across England and Wales before the system was introduced in January - and that the company had relied on estimated figures to draw up its plans.

But he accused interpreters, unhappy with dramatic pay cuts under the new contract, of causing big gaps in provision. In the month after the five–year deal began the company fulfilled only 65 per cent of service requests and over the first quarter faced 2,232 complaints.

ALS was set up nine years ago by Mr Wheeldon and bought by professional services firm Capita last December for £7.5 million.

Mr Wheeldon told the Justice Select Committee: “There was an awful lot of intimidation around this contract and strong encouragement for interpreters not to do the work, even where they had registered or even taken some assignments and then decided not to work.

“Interpreters who have worked for us have been assaulted, spat on and threatened. The list of things that went on is quite horrendous.”

sThe new system led to complaints about proceedings being held up or collapsing because interpreters failed to attend court or lacked the necessary skills.

But Justice Minister Helen Grant said the service was now “considerably better”. Complaints have dropped, performance has risen and the the National Audit Office is recommending full implementation of the contract.