Coalition: Value for money translation for Police and the Courts?

Many people have lived in Britain since birth and are still very much incapable of using the English language properly.

But there is another issue and this involves the use of foreign languages in Britain. Those who tell you that you can learn a foreign language studying a few hours each week are obviously lying to you and you end up spending a huge amount of money buying hot air.

The Coalition Government is desperately trying to save money and its efforts seem to have backfired when it contracted the services of a company called Applied Language Solutions (ALS) to provide translation and interpreting services to both the Police and the Courts.

Applied Language Solutions has reportedly been unable to deliver what was promised at a cost of hundred of millions of pounds of taxpayers money and this is the same company that was awarded a translation contract for the Olympic Games.

There are cases of translators and interpreters that could not be provided and of those who were effectively provided there is a number that has not been paid the arranged fees. We must take also into account translators and interpreters that have proven to be unable to work due to personal incompetence.

The saving exercise has ended up being an absolute shambles and there are also reports indicating that, even when ALS has cut down fees offered to translators and interpreters, a hole in the official budget of the Ministry of Justice is growing on a daily basis.

Change for change sake can be a recipe for disaster and this is yet another example of 'value for money' turned into 'value for rubbish'.