Telford & Wrekin Council spends £50,000 on translation
Monday 26th December 2011, 10:59AM GMT.
Telford & Wrekin Council has spent more than £50,000 on translation services in the past four years.
Chiefs say the cash has been used to translate council literature and pay for ‘community interpretation’ – sending people out to speak face-to-face with those who cannot understand English.
They say the cost, which has come down year on year and saw £1,624 spent on translating documents in the last financial year, is very small compared to the council’s overall budget of about £130 million.
But Wrekin MP Mark Prit- chard called for all expenditure on translation to be scrapped, claiming the money could be better spent on care for the elderly or keeping down council tax bills.
In a letter to the council, he said: “The inability to speak English is a barrier to social cohesion and can make some people dependent on state benefits. It is also a considerable burden on local tax- payers, which should end.”
Councillor Shaun Davies said he did not recognise the claims that the council could cut translation services to fund ‘vast swathes of care’.
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