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Met's translator bill to hit £20m as foreign population rises
Nicholas Cecil, Chief Political Correspondent16.06.09
Police in London are being hit with a soaring bill for translators to deal with foreign criminals, victims and witnesses.
A Metropolitan Police chief has admitted that the cost of language services is set to rise to £20 million by 2012.
Martin Tiplady, the Met's director of human resources, said the capital's population is forecast to grow by 750,000 to 8.1million by 2016.
"This continuous growth in population along with the growth of distinct communities in London and the requirement for an ever-increasing number of languages has produced pressure on operational policing effectiveness," he said.
He said the force's language service was "not fit for purpose" to cope with the growing number of cases involving foreign nationals.
Its cost has spiralled by 45 per cent over the past four years with more than 300 languages now being spoken in the capital which has at least 50 "distinct communities" of more than 10,000 people.
"If no changes are made to the current system by the time the 2012 Olympics arrive, the Metropolitan Police Service is likely to be spending circa £20 million per annum," Mr Tiplady added in a report for the Metropolitan Police Authority's finance and resources committee's meeting on Thursday.
This would equate to about £5.50 a year for every household in the capital.
In the past financial year, Scotland Yard spent £12.5 million on language services, including on public safety campaigns.
The force uses 413 individual contractors specialising in about 100 languages on its call-out list and seeks extra assistance from the National Register of Public Service Interpreters during periods of peak demand.
But even then, there have been long delays in some cases due to language barriers and in a number a "significant risk" because of the problems.
The Met now wants to transform its language service with a £5.6 million programme including video links for police stations, a new computer system to allocate translators, better training and use of staff with linguistic skills, as well as new software to initially identify languages being spoken.
The overhaul aims to hold down the annual language bill to £13.3 million.
The costs raised questions over Labour's record on immigration. Lib-Dem home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "This highlights the failure of the Government's policy to ensure that immigrants speak English."
Shadow London minister Justine Greening said the force should ensure it was spending money wisely.
She added: "Some councils have discovered that money has been wasted when they have translated documents into foreign languages but they have not been read. The Met needs to be careful not to go down the same road."
Keith Best, chief executive of the Immigration Advisory Service, said a lack of competition among translation agencies could be pushing up costs.
Reader views (13)
What is amazing is no one has the statistics on immigrants that immigration is an area no one can quantify the home office the police and the local authorities between them cannot give a figure yet go for a hospital appt and it is one of the stat questions is will you be requiring an interpretor ? why does this country pander to people in this fashion ?
- Jeanette Eccles, London
Why don't the embassies provide the translators? And for people that are british citizens but can't speak the language - why were they given citizenship in the first place?
- Mr Opinion, London Village
Millie, London
They need a kick-up the rear and to be sent to night school the lazy gits, not translators. What kind of person claims to want to live here but can not be bothered to learn the language, bone idle spongers that other country wants, thats who.
- Ge, Kernow
In the USA if you do not speak English you get nothing.
- Richard Edmunds, Rayleigh Essex
Any one checked how much translators cost the NHS. They are used on a daily basis in the clinic I work at.
- Millie, London
One of the reasons that Labour have allowed massive immigration without worring about the consequences, is because they did not have the courage to deal with the looming public sector pensions funding crisis. They hoped that an extra 5-10 million younger people living and working in the country would solve the problem without having to face reality.
The fact is that in addition to our rapidly spiralling public debt there is a probable shortfall of around £1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) in future pensions provision. There is no way we will be able to ever find this money. The increased numbers of people living here during the recession already means that welfare payments funded by Government borrowing, will rocket. Demands on all public services have increased. The debt mountain will become Himalayan in proportions. Leaving our economy increasingly gasping for breath with growth trapped in an icy frost.
The solution of allowing higher inflation to remedy the visible debt problem will mean that the unfunded public sector index linked pension funding requirement will just grow ever larger.
When people say Labour, Blair and Brown in particular, have destroyed this country. They are understating the problem big time. Instead of enjoying fat pensions at our expense, failed Labour politicians should be imprisoned.
- Harry H, London UK
I can appreciate that interpreters should be middle men and not actually employed by the police but the hourly rates cherged by agencies are bonkers. Time for the police to reduce the rates. I'm sure most interpreters would take less for what is, lets face it, easy money compared with the sort of jobs these interpreters could get otherwise.
- Jack Spratt, Richmond, Surrey
The economic and cultural benefits of immigration -- to the UK! -- far outweigh the inconvenience and the anger felt by those who think their own jobs are at risk (in reality few) or who think some vast percentage of their taxes are used as life-support for helpless free-loaders (greatly exaggerated). As for the reported additional £20m to be spent on translators -- that sounds like money well spent on a good cause (the talented people who are skilled enough to do the job can now find useful employment here for their skills) -- far better spent than on the sort of police officer expenses reported yesterday.
- Bloke, London
But surely this is counter balanced by the economic benefits of granting an amnesty to illegal immigrants according to our superiors ? Not to mention the social and cultural enrichment of course................
- Andy Woodhead, London, ENGLAND
No problem with translators being used but shouldn't the person who needs them pay for them. And if they can't afford a translator then they can either stop pretending not to understand english or else learn at Her Majesty's pleasure.
- Gazza, London,England
Does any other country in the world encourage its immigrants not to learn the language like this? I do not think so. If you want to live in a country, then learn the language and its customs, don't try and change them is their attitude. But not ours, we even hire medics who do not speak this country's official language.
- Helen, norwich
Let's not forget, that the financial benefits of immigration amount to one Mars Bar per UK household per week.
That does not include housing, healthcare, crime etc.
But it is so good for Brown's figures on economic growth.
- British Not Racist, Bracknell England
Thanks to Labour, our porous borders have yet more impact and cost. Well done Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, thanks for your "Leadership".
- Dave Davies, Basingstoke, Hants
