Interpreting service - Guide to the service

Your interpreting and translation service

Why this guide?
Our commitment to you
A snapshot of our services
How to find us
Opening hours
How to contact us
Languages covered
Receiving interpreting assistance at our offices
Interpreting at your meetings with the Council/public/voluntary agencies
Charging policy
Complaints
Standards
Customer reaction
Download your guide to the Interpreting Service
Services to other agencies

Why this guide?
This guide tells you about:

the range of services we provid;
the standards we always aim to achieve; and
the procedures you can follow if you wish to complain to us, compliment us or suggest ways in which we can do better.

Our commitment to you
We are committed to:

meeting your language needs;
treating you with respect and courtesy;
delivering the highest quality service; and
continuing to seek ways to improve the service.

Our overall aim is to provide you with a confidential, courteous, helpful and efficient service.

A snapshot of our services
Our main function is to provide an interpreting service to you as a borough resident if your first language is not English and you possess limited or no English. The service is free to you if you are requiring it to access services provided by the council or other public or voluntary agencies. We want to help you overcome the language barrier so that you do not experience any disadvantage in accessing council or other public and voluntary agency services merely because of a lack of knowledge and understanding of English.

We will help you by explaining in your language the meaning of letters or other documents you may have received from the council or other public and voluntary agencies. Where a reply is required, we will help you by preparing your response in English.

We will also help you communicate with the council or other public and voluntary agencies by attending meetings you may have with them.

Opening hours
Our hours of opening on Mondays to Fridays are 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 4.30pm. During these hours we operate both a drop-in service and an appointment service. For an appointment, contact us during office hours, Monday to Friday. If our normal opening hours are inconvenient, then we can offer you an appointment outside of these hours.

How to contact us

By telephone
The direct lines for telephone enquiries are (020) 8672 1043 and (020) 8672 3649. The telephone will be answered between 9.00am and 1pm and 2pm and 5pm, Monday to Friday. We will answer your call within five rings. Outside these hours, an answerphone service is in operation and you will be contacted by no later than the following working day. We are also trained to receive calls via TypeTalk.

By letter
If you wish to write to us, please address your letter to the Wandsworth Interpreting Service, Bedford House, 215 Balham High Road, London SW17 7BQ.

If you write to us, we will respond within five working days. If this is not possible then our target is to acknowledge your letter within five working days and provide you with the full response within ten working days. If there are exceptional circumstances and we are unable to write to you with the full answer, we will keep you regularly informed until we do provide a full response.

However, if you are writing to request an appointment for an interpreting session and you need the session as quickly as possible, we will arrange the session within three working days of receiving your letter and will contact you to confirm the appointment details.

By fax or email
You may fax us on (020) 8672 5523 or email us at wis@wandsworth.gov.uk.

Languages covered
We have directly employed interpreters covering the seven languages generally in most demand - Gujarati, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Hindi , Somali and Tamil. In addition, we have approved interpreters covering other languages who can be called into use.

We cover spoken languages (like, for example, French, Spanish, Portuguese) but we can also provide British Sign Language (BSL)interpreters / communicators, lipspeakers and deafblind interpreters. At the moment though, these alternative methods of communication are not covered in our drop-in service. For more information on access for BSL users please see the video on www.wandsworth.gov.uk/wis.

Receiving interpreting assistance at our offices
When you visit WIS, you will be seen by our reception staff immediately. They will record your time of arrival to ensure that your waiting time is kept to a minimum.

If you are using our drop-in service, you will normally be seen by an interpreter within 20 minutes, provided an interpreter with the required language skills is available. We have also introduced a challenging target of seeing 50% of all customers within 15 minutes of arrival. Otherwise, an appointment will be made for a mutually convenient time, guaranteeing you immediate attention.

You will certainly need an appointment if your language is not one of the languages most in demand (Gujarati, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Hindi, Somali and Tamil). This is because we will have to make arrangements with one of our approved sessional interpreters. Our aim is to arrange for such interpreting appointments to be held within three working days subject to this being convenient to you and subject to the availability of an interpreter with the required language.

If you wish to see an interpreter of the same gender or the same interpreter who assisted you in the past, we will do our utmost to meet your request.

For the interpreting session, you will be taken into a private office unless competing demands on the accommodation make this impossible. Should this be the case, the session will only proceed if you have no objection.

The interpreter's role is to interpret: it is not to take sides or to give guidance on entitlement to a service from the council or other agencies. Whilst we will always try our best to help you with such guidance, you should ask the council service or other agency concerned to see you as they are best placed to advise you. Also ask them to arrange for an interpreter to be in attendance. They will know the easiest way to do this and it will save you having to get involved in organising the arrangements. Again, if you need the services of a specific interpreter previously used or an interpreter of the same gender, ask the council service/agency to arrange this with us.

See what other residents said about our Drop-in Service in the "comments" section!

Interpreting at your meetings with the Council/public/voluntary agencies
Where we are asked by a council service or other agency to provide interpreting assistance, the interviewing officer should introduce our interpreter to you and explain the interpreter's role. This is to convey accurately the meaning of what is being said. The interpreter is not there to take sides. Although the interviewing officer should have briefed our interpreter before the interview on the general background so that the interview proceeds smoothly, it may be necessary during the interview for the interpreter to seek clarification from the interviewing officer on the meaning of technical or procedural matters to ensure that the correct meaning is conveyed to you.

Our interpreters should always attend the interview at the arranged time. We monitor their attendance and punctuality. In addition, we monitor the quality of their work by periodically sitting in on interpreting sessions but only do this with your agreement.

See what others have said about our interpreters in the "comments" section!

Charging policy
Interpreting is a free service to borough residents, council departments and the voluntary agencies that are assisting borough residents.

Where voluntary agencies receive grants of any sort that cover the cost of interpreting then charges will be levied in these cases.

Translation work is extremely time consuming and expensive and it is not possible to offer this as a free service unless the permanent members of staff have spare time in which to carry out the translation. In all other cases sessional translators are used and the costs are passed on together with an administrative overhead.

Interpreting work is carried out for external public sector agencies and solicitors on a commercial basis.

Charges for external agencies

Spoken Language Interpreting
£70 for up to 2 hours interpreting inclusive of travel costs
£20 per subsequent hour (or part thereof)

British Sign Language or other alternative communication methods (e.g. Speech to Text Reporting) are charged on a case-to-case basis. We will also advise you on specific needs and whether you need one or two professionals present.

Translation
£30 minimum charge for 200 words or less
After that please add an extra £10 per 100 words (prices calculated in chunks of 100 words).

Translations are available in .pdf, .eps or .jpeg format.
Special rates may apply for technical work or work requiring graphical formatting.
Special discounts available for regular customers and voluntary groups by arrangement.

Specialist advice on what to translate and what not, is available by our service.

How do we compare?
- Spoken Language Interpeting:
Other council-based South London Interpreting Services would charge: £70 for the first two hours exclusive of travel costs.
- British Sign Language:
We would give you a quote for each assignment. Normally, a session of up to 3 hours would cost approx. £120 inclusive of travel costs. Most London based agencies (council or private-sector) would charge you approx. £150 for the same booking period.
- Translations:
Most council-based agencies would charge a minumum of £30 and then £15 for every extra 100 words.

Please contact us for a comprehensive benchmarking comparison of prices. We would be happy to share our data with you.

Complaints
We have a formal complaints procedure to deal with any dissatisfaction you may have with our service. The complaints procedure is based on a simple three-stage approach:-

Stage 1 - Contact the WIS Manager, Yanna Dandolou, giving details of your complaint. The Manager will try to resolve your problem as quickly as possible. She is based at Bedford House, 215 Balham High Road, SW17 7BQ.

Telephone: (020) 8672 1043/3649
Email: ydandolou@wandsworth.gov.uk

Stage 2 - If you are still unhappy, contact the Head of Support Services, who has overall responsibility for the service. He is based at the Town Hall, Wandsworth High Street, SW18 2PU.

Telephone: (020) 8871 6026
Email: pwatson@wandsworth.gov.uk

Stage 3 - Finally, if your complaint has still not been handled satisfactorily, contact the Chief Executive, who will take an independent view of the problem. He is also based at the Town Hall, Wandsworth High Street, SW18 2PU.

Telephone: (020) 8871 6001
Email: gkjones@wandsworth.gov.uk

We aim to reply in full to complaints at each of the three stages within five working days. If this is not possible because of the complexity of your complaint, then we will acknowledge your complaint within five working days and provide the full response within ten working days. If there are exceptional circumstances and we are unable to write to you with the full answer, we will keep you regularly informed until we do provide a full response.

If you wish to comment on our complaints procedure, please either call us or complete and post us this form.

Complaints procedure feedback (46 kb)

Standards
Throughout this guide, we have highlighted the standard of service you should receive from us (e.g. waiting times, telephone and letter response times etc.). We monitor our performance against these standards. We display details of our performance in our waiting room. In addition, we report each year to councillors on our performance.

Find out how we performed against our standards.

Customer reaction
We are keen always to hear what our customers think of the service we provide - be it good or bad. Our aim is to provide you with the best possible service but to do this we need to know your views.

We regularly conduct customer surveys and if you are given a survey questionnaire, we would be grateful for your co-operation in completing and returning it to us. With your involvement, we can ensure that we are providing a service that is responsive to customer needs.

Another way of gauging your opinion is if you complete one of our comments cards which you will find in our waiting room. If you have any thoughts on how we could improve our service, or you would like to comment on features of the present service you particularly liked, then please complete one of these cards and either hand it to our staff or post it to us.

Finally, you can, if you prefer, write to or email the Manager of WIS at Bedford House, 215 Balham High Road, SW17 7BQ - wis@wandsworth.gov.uk or the Head of Support Services at the Town Hall, Wandsworth High Street, SW18 2PU or by email to pwatson@wandsworth.gov.uk.

Download your guide to the service
You can download this guide to the Interpreting Service in the following languages. You will need Adobe Reader installed on your computer. You can download this program for free at www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.

When reading our service guides you should note that a number of service improvements have been made.

Drop-in service improvements
When you visit us, you will be seen by our reception staff immediately. They will record your time of arrival to ensure that your waiting time is kept to a minimum.

If you are using our drop-in service, you will normally be seen by an interpreter within 20 minutes provided an interpreter with the required language skills is available. We have also introduced a challenging target of seeing 50% of all customers within 15 minutes of arrival. Alternatively an appointment will be made for a mutually convenient time, guaranteeing your immediate attention.

The languages available for the drop-in service are the languages of the core team (Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Bengali, Somali and Tamil). It is always advisable to telephone first to check on availability and because some of the core languages are not available every day. Otherwise, this can result in the inconvenience of a wasted journey.

Translations service improvements
The response time for translation work will vary, depending upon the language required and the nature of the document to be translated. WIS will normally aim to return translated material to the client within four weeks of receipt (28 calendar days). We have set a new challenging target for dealing with smaller jobs. Small jobs up to 1,000 words will be completed within 5 working days.

English (358 kb)
Bengali (284 kb)
Gujurati (281 kb)
Hindi (284 kb)
Punjabi (279 kb)
Urdu (3 mb)

Services for other agencies
You can also download special guides to the services offered to voluntary and public organisations and the council. These guides are only available in English.

Interpreting services for voluntary organisations (79 kb)
Interpreting services for public agencies (77 kb)
Interpreting services for council departments (78 kb)

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