October 1st 2012
Are ever larger contracts really the answer?
The recent scandal exposed by the National Audit Office (NAO) of the recently tendered Ministry of Justice language translation service being inadequately monitored and overseen is just the latest of a very long list of large regional and national contracts that have provided poor or deficient services and where the department or authority involved has proven unable to supervise or monitor effectively.
The NAO declared that it had found private contractor Capita/ALS met less than 60% of the translator bookings against an agreed target of 98% and that on many occasions the translators were not able to translate to the standard required. It further stated that the Ministry of Justice had not deployed the sanctions that it had available for around six months.
When you consider the seriousness of the situations in which these people need translations services you readily see what the consequences of receiving a poor service can mean to people.
This report is pretty typical of any close analysis of such large contracts. The companies that win them have invested a huge amount in the tender process (often several million) and they trim their costs in order to win the contract. They rely on the fact that the government department or local authority will not be able to oversee them very strictly and they employ extremely skilled contracts managers to fend them off if they do. Moreover, they engineer the final contract with a series of exit clauses and mitigations that make defaults very hard to pin down and successfully impose.
It’s an effective strategy that means the corporate body rarely loses out and the government fails to get the services that it hoped for. But worst of all the people for whom the service was designed get a raw deal and have no practical form of redress. They cannot see the contract (its commercial in confidence) they have few routes to complain and the firm employs the same stonewalling strategies that is does with the commissioning department.
The result is opaque, wasteful and inefficient.
I argue that we must bring these services closer to the people they are supposed to serve. I believe that they should be delivered locally and by local businesses and organisations that are much more accountable to the local people whom they serve. This would be achieved partly by simply being local and therefore being accessible but of course I would want to see much greater transparency about the terms on which they are contracted and what the avenues for redress are. We could see a local translation service based in every town and city. They could use the services of local people; after all we have as a country attracted a wide range of immigrants from almost every corner of the globe. Such a service could really engage with its diverse population and thereby engage them with some of the issues that affect the locality whether they are in health, police or general council services.
But of course, I’m told that local contracting is too expensive and anyway it’s against EU guidance. For the first I point to the thoughts of John Ruskin who said, ‘What is the cheapest to you now is likely to be the dearest to you in the end.’ On the second point it seems to me that’s a very simplistic understanding of EU tendering. I don’t think they meant that at all when they set the rules. It doesn’t seem to be interpreted like that elsewhere in the EU. I don’t think the Italian school system would import food when they could use locally grown produce. How do they do it? Apparently, they simply state that they want fresh food and then define fresh as being no more than 4 hours from picking to plate. Quite reasonable conditions in fact.
A simple example maybe, but one that is no doubt replicated for much more complex services. We should look at how the other public authorities in the EU do it – I’m sure they would share their bid documents as one of the beauties of public service is that they’re not constrained by privacy or by trying to gain commercial advantage all the time.
And of course, if you are struggling to translate these European procurement documents then you could always turn to your pool of local translators!
- Colin Crooks’ book How to Make a Million Jobs: A Charter for Social Enterprise is reviewed here
When the MOJ contract is viewed as a case in point in an article like this and is used ahead of the G4S Olympics contract, you know something is truly rotten about it.
One thing you are completely correct about is the seriousness of the situations people are in. I should add that if anyone reading this thinks that this refers to murder or rape accusations, for instance, they’d be right. However, consider the upshot of even a minor conviction on someone if convicted incorrectly. Loss of job can result from that and any number of potential downward spirals can result from it.
I’m one of the interpreters affected but my own working situation is secondary to the fortunes of anyone at the eye of the storm, in the actual cases affected by this contract.
You have to remember one thing: a private sector company or an individual who goes to an agency or person for a translation may find a good or bad job is done, but a bad job is still on work that person actively went out and sought. If they make a bad decision, that’s at best unfortunate if it’s simply down to poor research or simply being duped or misled into using a service that doesn’t do a good job.
A person sitting detained in a police station, or needing to make a statement, or someone up in court, does not have a say in who interprets for them. In many instances they also don’t know what should be expected in terms of qualifications and professionalism. They are given who they are given. It is for that reason that in the legal side of interpreting (criminal, civil or family), the standards that have been seen in our court system since the ALS-Capita contract was embarked on are a particularly awful travesty.
You are so right, I am one of the interpreters who cannot afford to work for courts any more. Still baffled by the word ‘outsourcing’, we were already ‘outsourced’, as all of us are small businesses appearing on professional registers and, therefore, in competition with each other. Our fees were already very tight (£85 minimum charge for a court hearing) and unchanged for a long time. Again, I do not understand how giving the contract to a single, inexperienced operator (ALS) could inject market forces into public services. It only creates monopolies where any drop in standards is possible and can go unnoticed. I fear that all this ‘outsourcing’ business is just a huge opportunity for some senior civil servants to take backhanders.
Just on the procurement point (I am a solicitor) you are right to say that there are ways to achieve social outcomes by getting the procurement process right. It is correct to say that requiring local contractors is against EU Procurement law, but with or without the recent Public Services (Social Value) Act public bodies can nevertheless still (legally and properly) achieve social benefits in procurement.
For those interested in reading more about these things, you might like to try:
http://www.anthonycollins.com/briefings/maximising-benefits-society-through-contracts-public-services (on the Social Value Act) and Pathways Trhough The Maze on procurement. http://www.navca.org.uk/publications/maze
The important word is ‘guidance’ and too many people think that guidance is a strict set of rules which must be followed under all circumstances. Guidance is guidance and is not the actual rules, regulations or law.
This localised approach to economic development was seen as an answer to a corrupt top down approach in Russia. It’s interesting to note that in spite of the rhetoric for better capitalism, the crony culture within government is still a major obstacle.
http://economics4humanity.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/post-growth-people-centered-local-economies/