Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many formal complaints there have been related to interpreter services in each year since that service was contracted out; and what the main reason was in each of those years for such complaints.

This information can be found in the published tables contained within the quarterly Criminal Court Statistics (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-statistics-quarterly-july-to-september-2017). The number of complaints in each year has decreased from 2013 to 2016.

In 2013, the reason with the highest number of complaints was ‘no interpreter available’ (3562) – this accounted for 54% of complaints in 2013. In 2014, the reason with the highest number of complaints was ‘no interpreter available’ (1347) – 46% of total complaints. In 2015, the reason with the highest number of complaints was ‘no interpreter available’ (620) –30% of total complaints. For 2016 figures, we are unable to provide a breakdown of the reasons for complaint, this is because of the changeover of contract leading to missing complaint reasons for 2016 Q4.

In the current year to date, the reason with the highest number of complaints is ‘interpreter was late’ (397) - this accounts for 25% of complaints to date.