Magistrates' Courts: Welsh Language

Jenny Willott
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) how much his Department has spent on translating summonses into Welsh in each month since January 2009; and if he will make a statement;

(2) how many requests there have been for summonses to be translated into Welsh in each month since January 2009; and if he will make a statement.

Bridget Prentice
From 9 December 2008 to 13 September 2009, HMCS operated a national process for manual translation of documents into Welsh. This was the period between completion of Libra IT rollout across all magistrates' courts, and the release of the bilingual version of the system. During this time documents were manually translated upon request, within one working day.

Since 13 September, bilingual documents have been produced automatically from Libra where customers indicate a Welsh language preference.

From January 2009 to September 2009, HMCS spent a total of £2,605 on manual translation of summonses into Welsh. The following table gives a breakdown per month.

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|Month         |Cost (£)|
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|January 2009  |410.00  |
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|February 2009 |365.00  |
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|March 2009    |620.00  |
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|April 2009    |270.00  |
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|May 2009      |170.00  |
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|June 2009     |305.00  |
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|July 2009     |240.00  |
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|August 2009   |150.00  |
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|September 2009|75.00   |
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|Total         |2,605.00|
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|              |Number|
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|January 2009  |19    |
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|February 2009 |38    |
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|March 2009    |42    |
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|April 2009    |33    |
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|May 2009      |36    |
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|June 2009     |58    |
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|July 2009     |44    |
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|August 2009   |38    |
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|September 2009|26    |
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|Total         |334   |
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