Addressing the language needs of local communities - part one

PART ONE: the current context

There has been some media coverage in recent months concerning the cost of translation services in the public sector, for example:

• ‘£20M-A-YEAR BURDEN OF TRANSLATING FOR MIGRANTS’ (The Express, 16 Jan 2010)
• ‘NHS spends £22m on translators for foreign patients’ (The Sun, 11 Jan 2010)
• ‘A £22m smack in the mouth’ (The News of the World, 17 Jan 2010)

Unfortunately, such newspaper headlines do little for race relations in the UK, particularly when people are still smarting from the impact of the current economic recession and are, quite understandably, critical of what they regard as high levels of public sector expenditure.

Interestingly, the Local Government Association (LGA) reports that the amount spent by councils on translation has actually reduced from the figure of £25m in 2006.
A spokesperson for the LGA said: "Translation has its place to ensure people can access vital services, find jobs and get their children into school. However, translation should not be a substitute for learning English and all public bodies need to adopt a common-sense approach."

As a pragmatist myself, I welcome a ‘common-sense’ approach as long as it allows us to deliver our business objectives and at the same time allows us to fulfill our legal obligations to the public. Unfortunately it seems that many public sector critics appear completely unaware of the level of scrutiny we endure and the legal ramifications of us failing to provide basic levels of service to the public.

Meeting customer need

It is important that all our customers have access to high quality services which meet their individual needs. Naturally, as part of this high quality service, individuals should expect to have access to information in a format they can understand.

But rather than jumping to the solution of buying in translation services, perhaps we should start by asking ourselves: ‘how do we ensure that our customers are better able to access the key information they need to make more informed choices about their service provision?’

Using external face-to-face translation services is an option, of course, but it’s not the only one. A limitation of this approach is that it can be very resource intensive i.e. expensive, and it is sometimes difficult to gain access to an interpreter at short notice. However, the procurement of telephone translation services can reduce the costs significantly and can also shorten response times.

A further potential limitation in using external translation services is that, in some cases, we are reliant upon the interpreter to translate sometimes quite technical information. If the interpreter does not have sufficient experience of the sector or service area, translating critical information into someone’s native tongue could prove problematic particularly in areas such as acute medical care. This ‘mistranslation’ of critical, technical information may also prove problematic when clients rely on family members for translation.

Another option is to recruit employees with the language skills of the local community and/or train up existing employees in the main community languages. This is great as long as it is acknowledged that this role is part of their ‘day-job’ and they are remunerated for this additional responsibility. The difficulty, of course, is that in some parts of the UK, there are scores of different languages spoken in the community and the organization may struggle to develop the full range of languages needed, in-house. This is where an external translation service would prove useful.

Another suggestion has been to provide English language starter courses for those non-English speakers who require on-going access to a particular service e.g. hospital visits. This would go some way to reducing the need for the translation of every single interaction. This would, however, rely on suitable candidates being identified early, and them being able and willing to take part in English language training. This would also require the commitment of the public sector to provide and fund skilled language trainers.

It seems clear that there is no one single solution to this issue; hence a combined approach that addresses the specific needs of each region needs to be adopted. The public sector needs to make good use of the wealth of information it collects about its customer base and plan for its changing demographics and language needs.

Pragmatic approaches

It is no longer acceptable to the general public for the sector to spend money where there is no clear evidence that a service is warranted. For example, a large unitary authority in the late 1980s routinely translated its documents and signage into all the main community languages. It also routinely advertised its job vacancies in all the minority ethnic press. Whilst very well intentioned, closer scrutiny of its data showed that the community did not benefit from this blanket approach. Looking at the statistics allowed the authority to focus its scarce resources only in those areas where it would have the greatest impact and where there was evidence of an identified need.

Another example of a local authority taking a pragmatic approach to meeting the community’s language needs is a small district council in the south east. This local authority pays a small allowance to those employees who have language skills and who are willing to act as interpreters for members of the public when they are accessing council services. According to the Head of HR & Development, there are such a variety of languages spoken by local residents that sponsoring their employees to learn other languages would not be a practical solution. Instead of this they have introduced a training programme for front line staff called 'lowering language barriers'. This is aimed at helping staff communicate effectively with visitors for whom English is a second language. This has proved to be very helpful for the council and its residents.