Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times a court case has been halted or postponed either (a) on the day of, (b) on the day before and (c) in the week before the case due to a failing of Capita to deliver its requirements under its interpreters' contract.

The case management systems for the County Court and Family Court do not record reasons for adjournments/postponements.

Data is not collected centrally by HMCTS showing the reasons for adjournments in every hearing in every court case. Different case management systems are used throughout Crown Courts, Magistrates Courts, Family Courts and County Courts to record different levels of data. The only way to enable the provision of a response to this question would be to manually check each case file from each court.

The interpreting contract has delivered significant improvements since being introduced to tackle the inefficiencies and inconsistencies in the previous system. The provision of all language services is now available 24/7 with interpreters spending more time translating than ever before. We now have a quality service that is robust, sustainable and affordable, and we have spent £27m less in the first two years of the contract. We will continue to drive further improvements in performance to deliver value for the taxpayer.