Axe fear as police pay £25m for translators

Record spending on foreign-language interpreters will result in cutbacks to frontline policing, a chief constable has warned.

In the past 12 months, police forces in England and Wales have spent £25million on translators – £4million more than last year.

Gloucestershire Chief Constable Tim Brain said police staffing levels would suffer if the amount spent on interpreters – who are needed to deal with the huge influx of immigrants – continued to rise.

Dr Brain added: If the police are meeting many more people whose first language is not English and who are not certain of their use of the English language, whether they are victims of crime, witnesses or suspects, we will need to use interpreters more. Costs will rise as a result.

There are likely to be more pressures on these specialist police costs over the next few years but at the moment, Government spending plans see police budgets held at or below the level of general inflation. That means a real-term cut in funding.

At the moment forces can use their contingency reserves, but these cannot be used for ever. Once they're spent out, there will have to be cutbacks and, in a service where over 80 per cent of our costs are staff, that inevitably will mean fewer police officers or staff.'

Dr Brain said many other costs, such as those for police surgeons and forensic science services, would also rise because of increased demand.

He predicted the cuts would begin to bite within the next three to four years.

The fresh figures for spending on translators, released under the Freedom of Information Act, show that the country's largest force, the Metropolitan Police, spent the most – £9.9million last year, against £8.8million in 2005-2006.

A spokesman for the Met, whose spending on translators has rocketed by almost £3million in four years, said: It is essential that we communicate clearly with victims and perpetrators to ensure that cases brought before the court are not jeopardised in any way.'

But Tory Immigration spokesman Damian Green said: This use of resources is yet another reason why it is important for people to learn English before they come here.

That is why, for example, we recently announced that people who want to come to this country to marry should be able to speak English.

We have already proposed that some of the money currently spent on translators should be redirected to providing English-language lessons for immigrants.'

The Home Office refused to comment.