Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what financial penalties have been incurred by Capita in relation to its contract for provision of language services since 31 October 2011.

Capita TI only gets paid for completed bookings, so if it cannot supply an interpreter, it does not get paid. The Ministry of Justice manages service delivery and performance through a number of methods and remedies open to it under the contract. The Ministry is continually working with the supplier to improve performance delivery standards.

Service credits can be imposed on Capita in line with the terms of the contract when performance falls below the contractual level of 98% success rate. This level was set to drive very high levels of performance.

The service credit amounts for Jan 2012 – March 2014 is:

£53,777.00

The new interpreting contract was introduced to tackle the inefficiencies and inconsistencies in the previous system — and it has already saved taxpayers £15m in its first year. We have seen dramatic improvements over the life of the contract so far, with performance currently at 94% success rate, record numbers of bookings are now being made and fulfilled, and we continue to drive further improvement in performance.