1) To what extent do the current interpreting and translation services provided in courts meet the needs of those involved in proceedings, including defendants, witnesses, prosecutors and legal professionals?

Currently in Cumbria very few bookings are covered due to the shortage of interpreters in this area and the fees won’t cover someone to travel here.
Clarion do their best to recruit but without the financial incentive it’s not going to happen.
Online interpreting doesn’t fulfil the needs of a deaf person who is not used to it and often court can be emotional which affects the interpreting process.
They are now looking at deaf people going to courts further away in order to get face to face interpreters which impacts on the people involved.
This also means a lack of deaf interpreters and intermediaries

1) I. How have interpreting and translation services changed in recent years?

I’m not experienced enough to answer this.

2) What are the key issues in the provision of interpreting and translation services and what impact do they have on the running of the courts, public trust, interpreters and translators.

Lack of interpreters, lack of training (although this is improving), lack of funds.

2) I. Is there data on the number of miscarriages of justice due to ITS error?

I don’t know

3) Are the required qualifications and experience of interpreting and translation services in the courts consistent?

Consistent as in they want a yellow badge. In an ideal world they’d want more.

5) How easy is it to recruit and retain skilled interpreters and translators to work in the courts?

Very difficult

5) I. What opportunities, barriers and pitfalls exist and how might these be addressed?

Lack of knowledge/awareness can be addressed by training. Lack of opportunities, shadowing is available

6) What is the potential role of new technology (such as artificial intelligence, machine translation and the digitisation of court proceedings) in the future of interpreting or translation services in the courts?

Remote interpretation isn’t working in most cases I have seen. Poor technology, staff don’t know how to use it, deaf people don’t understand it.

6) I. Would adoption of this technology in the courts be an appropriate use?

Not without improvements