Wandsworth Interpreting Service (WIS) Findings
Presentation at Ethnic Researchers Network Meeting, November 2002
The Wandsworth Interpreting Service (WIS) was set up in 1985 primarily
to provide an interpreting service but also with translation capability.
In-house interpreters focus on south Asian languages and other requirements
are met by freelance interpreters. More recently, Somali has been added
to the in-house capability. WIS is the only such service provider in
south and west London between Southwark and Hounslow. Consequently,
it is heavily used by a range of public agencies - Social Services,
Courts, Inland Revenue etc.
A 'Best Value Review' of the Service was carried out in 2001. This
included consultation with:
- Agency users
- Individual users 'on site'
- Potential users
This presentation is concerned with the last of these. The aim was
to determine the extent to which WIS was meeting the need for interpreting
and translation services; the level of awareness among potential audiences
and the measures being taken by those not in touch with the Service
to overcome any language difficulties. This was seen very much as a
'toe in the water' exercise. It was not expected to produce hard and
fast data but to provide a broad indication of the situation as regards
WIS and a starting point for other services when considering their communications
strategies.
The sample frame was provided by the Education Department's 'Form 7'
database. Each January, schools collect data on the home language of
pupils for central government. In Wandsworth the exercise is repeated
in September but the data is acknowledged to be less reliable. Using
data over one year old produced the usual contact problems but this
was unavoidable.
There was nothing remarkable about the methodology. Form 7 data on
parents with children at primary school was analysed. From this, the
13 languages spoken by sufficiently large numbers were selected. Self-completion
questionnaires were translated and posted to parents. This was also
seen as a test of the value of guidance that local authorities should
consider mass translations of material.
The pilot had shown that there was often no logical flow to responses.
For example, people might say they had no difficulty reading English
and then say they would find it very useful to have translations in
their own language. The decision was taken NOT to attempt question routing
as this might 'lose' useful indications of problems/needs.
Download the full presentation:
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