Anonymous supplement to tranfree 11

Dear Alex,

Thanks for the latest issue of tranfree. I would like to raise two issues anonymously for your next issue.

1. Non-payment by solicitors. For any translators or interpreters working for British lawyers the situation is becoming critical, especially if the case is legally aided. They have all decided not to pay unless they are first paid by the Legal Aid Board and even then, the Legal Aid Board will often decide that the job is worth less than it actually is. This is particularly true of very expensive jobs, involving lots of translation and interpreting. It is a very dangerous situation and one which all translators and interpreters should watch. Remember, with direct clients in particular, they MUST pay you regardless of whether they have been paid by their client.
2. Public Service Interpreters. As you may be aware, the Public Service Interpreters scheme is run by the Institute of Linguists whom the Home Office chose, in its wisdom, as the body representing translators, despite the fact that this is far from being the case, the Institute of Translation and Interpreting being the official body. Public Service Interpreting is badly paid worldwide (the Dutch public service interpreters have gone on strike because their pay has remained the same for 17 years!) and it is extremely stressful, much more so than taking VIPs from the Foreign Office around, for instance. One has to deal with cases of child abuse, for instance, which can be very distressing for the interpreter.

It has now been decided by the Home Office that the police and courts will have to use public service interpreters exclusively from the year 2001.

The reason for this introduction is to explain that all those on the present Public Service Interpreters list have been asked to re-register. First of all this involves paying £20 per language plus £10 to receive a certificate certifying you are a public service interpreter! And all this for as little as £15.00 an hour in some cases!

Secondly, and much more seriously, the re-registration form (remember, these are all people who are already working as public service interpreters) are being asked how many hours they worked in the last 5 years - and to prove it, not just with their diary entries but with letters of reference from courts, police, health authorities, etc!

No doubt they got the idea from AIIC, but in the case of AIIC, a candidate for AIIC membership knows from the outset that these documents will be required, they are not sprung on them at the last moment, and when there is no way of reconstructing what you did in the last five years! It is utterly ridiculous. They will lose interpreters in droves! There is already a serious shortage, even in languages like French. Believe me, a crisis is brewing in the public sector, including the courts, in the UK.

Anon.