MANCHESTER, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Manchester-based language company, Applied Language Solutions, has been awarded a framework agreement by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) after a 12 month procurement process. The deal is expected to greatly reduce the justice sector’s annual spend on interpretation and translation services, delivering cost savings in excess of £60 million, over five years.
MoJ and other justice organisations including police forces, the Crown Prosecution Service and probation trusts will be able to sign contracts under the framework agreement for the delivery of interpretation and translation services. The language contracts, which include translation, face to face foreign language interpreting, telephone interpreting and language services for the deaf and deafblind (including British Sign Language), will be rolled out from September 2011. Applied Language Solutions will deliver these services through its leading software platform, already used by several police forces across the UK, including Greater Manchester Police.
By using Applied Language Solutions’ national network of vetted and qualified freelance linguists who are approved, where appropriate, through an assessment process developed and delivered by independent institutions including Middlesex University, justice sector organisations will benefit from an all-encompassing coherent system that will deliver greater consistency and a higher quality of skilled linguists required for the job. Furthermore, this new system will effectively reduce administration and time costs for the front line workers across the justice sector.
Justice organisations with contracts under the framework agreement can make a booking request that will automatically allocate the nearest interpreter with the right language skills and experience, who is security checked and approved to work within the justice sector for the particular assignment. The team at Applied Language Solutions will also be able to book consecutive assignments for linguists based in a particular geographic area, improving the time it takes to source a linguist able to meet the criteria for the job.
Additionally, justice sector organisations will now benefit from a single pricing matrix, one point of contact to book services, and a uniform measurement of service usage including number of assignments, language demand and monthly spend. This will ensure that anyone interacting with the justice sector will receive the language support necessary to enable them to be fairly represented in society, whether as, for example, a witness, a victim of crime, a detainee or an individual on probation.
Commenting on the contract award, Gavin Wheeldon, CEO and founder of Applied Language Solutions, said: “This contract enables the justice sector to significantly reduce the amount of public money it spends on providing language services, whilst making huge improvements in efficiency that will free front line staff from the current administrative burden of searching for interpreters and translators. We have already achieved cost savings of up to 70 per cent for existing customers within the CJS and made huge improvements in efficiency and quality.
“We are thrilled that we will now be able to help the rest of the justice sector achieve similar savings through our industry leading technology and our experience in providing these services.”
Following this award notice, the official stand still period applies until 18th July 2011.
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Notes to editors
Applied Language Solutions provides translation, localisation and interpreting services to the public and private sectors globally. Customers include Caterpillar, Google, Sony, the United Nations and the NHS.
The company employs 130 people across 11 international offices and in 2010 reported a turnover of £10.6 million.
Current criminal justice system service level agreements exist between Applied Language Solutions and Greater Manchester Police, Merseyside Police, Lancashire Police, Cumbria Police, Cheshire Constabulary, North Wales Police, Lancashire Probation and West Yorkshire Probation.