Perils of Intellectual Servitude to Unholy Partnership between MoJ and ALS - Anonymous employee Capita Employee Review

In my modest opinion CapitaTI fka Applied Language Solutions has always been emotionally and mentally draining, unsatisfying, ungrateful and stifling environment for interpreters. I managed to gather a lot of oral evidence across many languages in support of it. My findings confirmed that CapitaTI's aim has always been to exploit the UK's foreign nationals with a cheap migrant worker's mentality and keep them in intellectual servitude for as long as possible. The experience I gained from the interaction with the Linguist Relations UK office was that it consisted of a poker-faced, xenophobic bunch of morose, prevaricating, cocky, never-available to take a call ALIENS. The sense of alienation and mutual mistrust was greatly deepened by almost inexistent communication on the background of merciless sanctions. Those rare but rude letters issued by Capita TI and sent by post to individual interpreters would bear no signatures or names of people that have issued them. Another reason why the communication also feels pointless is because most staff at Polish Linguist Relations office (where all the calls have been rerouted since recently) struggle with basic English on the phone, and one member in particular has terrible attitude issues. His emails read more like a slap on the face, than a constructive discussion. I find that sadly the majority of CTI interpreters are LAZY and IGNORANT hence easy to manipulate. Since CapitaTI hires them practically from the street, like genuine victims of crime they feel bound and gagged but grateful for whatever sops CapitaTI throws at them. They would lack the most basic qualification to be competent enough - a full Diploma in Public Service Interpreting (legal option). There would be no plans in place to gain that as Capita TI does not even begin to ask for the full DPSI of CIoL as a minimum accreditation. Question: Why would CapitaTI behave like this? Answer: Knowledge is essential to self-government. Ignorance results in external control. Extremely poor quality interpreting is no longer raising eyebrows. The role of a court interpreter in the UK is gradually being devalued akin to how it has always been in the US. With the advent of the Framework Agreement the image of a court and police interpreter has changed beyond recognisable from the one of a professional who used to play an integral part in an investigation, for example, to the one of a dispensable, shifty and underqualified job hunter who would do just about anything to top up their allowance. Some of those without freedom passes are even forced to fare-dodge as CapitaTI simply doesn't provide enough money for travel. When I tried to haggle their response at times was that they would try to find someone who would be willing to accept offers without travel supplements first, and then contact me in the worst case scenario. Unfortunately, they often did find someone vulnerable enough who had been waiting for a job from them for weeks! I personally tried to ENGAGE with CapitaTI's job offer bidding app - called Squishy - but it proved to be the most abysmal and degrading experience of my life, totally DEMEANING, defying the objective and inappropriate for use in any professional environment. Job offers are released online without any notifications. The ghastliest part of work is to follow when they appear and accept them as they come as there are NO texts or emails to alert interpreters in most cases. There either may be nothing all day, or a sudden influx of offers in course of an hour which is very easy to miss if not online. Consequently, interpreters are invited to either succumb to this mind-control tactic in order to be able to accept offers live on a first come first served basis, or risk being left with no work all. (This, in part, explains why the majority of CTI interpreters routinely keep their noses in their mobile phones, running a risk of turning into vegetables). Following the online offer frenzy, bids made by the linguists would be looked into by the Squishy yet again - a primitive amateur software that applies a concoction of its artificial 'intelligence', a set of inconspicuous variables and a degree of double standard to deciding on the choice of suppliers to 'award' those job offers to. It often 'awards' three 1hr bookings (all of which being 10 miles away from one another) to a single interpreter FOR THE SAME DATE and leaves the other two (or more) bidding candidates in the area WITH NOTHING. Considering that court hearings are rarely completed within 60min, that "busy" interpreter with three bookings 1hr each (in a single day) is forced to cancel the other two at an unrealistically short notice. The outcome of this dreadfully inefficient hit-and-miss service is such that Capita TI gets penalised for interpreter no-show on a regular basis. Capita TI staff rarely call around to offer jobs over the phone. Instead, they keep themselves busy writing fake reviews and publicising the already assigned job notifications when no longer required. It is actually quite revealing how a MONSTER like them wants to project this holligolightly image of a dignified establishment rather than embrace the reality and accept that they are typical EXPLOITORS with a slaver's mindset. Whatever little bubble they are proud to have created for themselves in that hard-to-get-to office in the Oldham's middle of nowhere, one of the most demoralising things is that they have consciously chosen not to preoccupy themselves with the reality of interpreting work on the ground from an interpreter's point of view and focused solely on the customer satisfaction and profit making from theirs. Capita TI does not remove interpreters for poor performance as that may be improved with practice. However, challenging questions, common sense and scrutiny are always a threat. In view of the fact that Capita TI is a middleman business that remains in a continuing desperate search of cheap suppliers, its recruitment managers would NOT think twice before exercising their powers of discretion at hiring all kinds of multilingual dregs of the clandestine underworld to do freelance interpreting work for their clients at Her Majesty's Courts and the Police Service. It beggars believe how the MoJ cannot see them for what they are, and it is only a matter of time before thebigword is swallowed by Capita PLC.