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Volume and Spend on Language Services July 2024-25

Reference: 25-26235

Date response sent: 21/08/2025

Details of enquiry

I am writing to request the following information under the Freedom of Information act.

  1. Volume of requests for F2F interpreting for spoken languages last 12 months (July 2024 to June 2025)
  2. Spend on F2F interpreting for spoken languages last 12 months (July 2024 to June 2025)
  3. Volume of requests for BSL interpreting last 12 months (July 2024 to June 2025)
  4. Spend on BSL interpreting last 12 months (July 2024 to June 2025)
  5. Volume of requests for telephone interpreting for spoken languages last 12 months (July 2024 to June 2025)
  6. Spend on telephone interpreting for spoken languages last 12 months (July 2024 to June 2025)
  7. Volume of requests for video interpreting for spoken languages last 12 months (July 2024 to June 2025)
  8. Spend on video interpreting for spoken languages last 12 months (July 2024 to June 2025)
  9. What are the top 10 languages requested in the last 12 months (July 2024 to June 2025)
  10. Are you currently engaged in a contract with a language service agency/multiple agencies?
  11. What is the name of those agencies?
  12. If a contract for language services/interpreting is in place, what date does this end on?

Response sent

We do not hold our translation and interpreting data and costs centrally, nor in a way that enables us to split out the different types of language services used, nor split out booking volumes and price per booking type, as we have a single accounting code to record all types of interpreting and translating, and so it is all coded and reported alike as a single expenditure type.

We are, therefore, unable to provide you with a breakdown of spend nor usage for the different language service types and costs as requested in your first 8 questions.  We can however report on total spend alone for this period:

1-8 Total Spend:

Total spend on language services July 2024 to July 2023 was £133,446.86.

This sum represents invoices paid during the period, and may contain charges for work undertaken prior to July 2024.

  1. What are the top 10 languages requested in the last 12 months (July 2024 to June 2025)

We do not record the languages translated, and do not hold this data.  The language required is not usually stated on the invoices we receive.

We have estimated that to search for the requested information, where held, would require a manual search of all language invoices amounting to a high volume of invoices, which, at an estimated 15 minutes per invoice would take approximately 25 hours per hundred invoices.

Section 12 of FOIA 2000 provides for refusal of requests for information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit of 18 hours/£450, equivalent to 18 hours at a generic £25 per hour of officer time. The per hour figure is set by Regulations rather than actual salary paid to any officers handling requests. The appropriate limit includes the time it would take the Trust to discover if it holds the requested information, locate it, and extract it – which would be in addition to any particular formatting requested by the requester.

This means that as the time required to process this question alone falls outside the cost limit, your question is refused and exemption from disclosure has been engaged under s12 of FOIA.

We can however advise you, from anecdotal evidence that the most common languages for which we required translators were Arabic, Farsi, and Pashtu.

  1. Are you currently engaged in a contract with a language service agency/multiple agencies?

No.  This has expired

  1. What is the name of those agencies?

DA Languages

  1. If a contract for language services/interpreting is in place, what date does this end on?

Not applicable.  See above response.

Please note that theTrust does not hold any information on future language service strategy or delivery models, as we are currently working towards a merger with another organisation, which is further explained on our website: Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust merger update

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