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Departmental Translation Services

Volume 507: debated on Thursday 11 March 2010

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what expenditure (a) his Department and (b) each of its agencies incurred on translators in each year since 1998. (317982)

The Department's expenditure on translation and interpretation services from 2003-04 to 2008-09, being the most recent period for which audited figures are available, is as follows:

£000

2003-04

2004-05

2005-06

2006-07

2007-08

2008-09

Home Office, including UKBA

13,499

14,903

10,419

9,683

9,636

8,301

Identity and Passport Service

3

3

3

6

1260

1,177

Criminal Records Bureau

0

0

0

13

0

0

1The Identity and Passport Service introduced compulsory face-to-face interviews for first time applicants in 2007-08. The first compulsory interview making use of an interpreter took place on 11 May 2007.

The Home Office figures in the table, for the financial years 2004-05 to 2007-08, do not include those for the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and the Office of Criminal Justice and Reform (OCJR), which transferred to Ministry of Justice on 1 April 2007: figures for NOMS and OCJR for 2003-04 could not be deducted from the Home Office total without incurring disproportionate cost.

Data prior to 2003-04 can only be extracted at disproportionate cost.