Social Security Scotland translation, interpretation and language services spend: FOI release

Information requested

Information from the financial years 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23.

All expenditure made by your organisation, in every facet of its operations and purview, on translation, interpretation, and language services.

Please provide the aggregated total spent by your organisation and then, if possible, please provide this broken down by particular function for which the service was carried out.

Response

Spend on translation, interpretation and language services totals £620,844 since financial year 2020/2021. The below table provides a breakdown:

Spend in £s by financial year

	2022/23	2021/22	2020/21
Cost of translation of documents into different languages (for example, translation of corporate documents and application forms)	370,440	87,853	70,989
Cost of British Sign Language interpretation and the provision of easy read versions of documents (for example BSL/easy read documents for stakeholder and client engagement/interactions)	2,480	10,871	22,807
Costs associated with the provision of an interpreter, whether in person or over the phone (for example BSL/easy read documents for stakeholder and client engagement/interactions)	38,334	13,072	473
Accounting adjustments not allocated to specific service	3,525	0	0
Total Expenditure	414,779	111,796	94,269

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