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Philadelphia Court Interpreter Services Study National Center for State Courts February 15, 1995 |
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| V. Program Organization
and Administration
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V. PROGRAM ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION Is the program
effectively organized and managed? Improvements
are needed. A
fragmented structure and lines of authority have evolved in the First Judicial
District's interpreter services program. The reasons for this made sense in
the past, but they now need rethinking. World demographic trends suggest that
growth of the need for interpreting services will continue. Most of the
foregoing findings and recommendations suggest reasons for increased centralization
of the management of interpreter services. This section provides further evidence
pointing in that direction. In addition
to separating staff interpreter services functionally from the per diem interpreters,
the court also maintains organizational boundaries between the Common Pleas
and Municipal Court interpreters. Moreover, coordination between the Common
Pleas central courthouse interpreters and interpreters assigned to the family
and juvenile divisions of the court is relatively informal and could be strengthened.
These circumstances are dysfunctional given the nature of the work and the
need the court has to achieve maximum flexibility and uniform standards of
competence among all of its interpreters. For example, the relatively high
use of contract agencies to provide interpreters in Spanish (at an annual
cost of $7580) may be attributable to the relatively low levels of communication,
coordination and management control over the different interpreter service
centers (see Appendix 4) There is currently
no automated support for the court's interpreter services. There is a need
to create an automated capacity for recording and later analyzing the kinds
of data that are now maintained only on payment invoices and in "scheduling
books" maintained in the office of court reporting. Data similar to what
this study has provided should be readily available, and centralizing the
services would make this more feasible. (The court should note that Figures
1 1.1 and 1 1.2 included in the publication Court Interpretation: Model Guides
for Policy and Practice are based on Philadelphia's practices and this study.) Individuals
with the professional expertise and incentive for improving the quality of
the services are tacitly inhibited from proactive efforts-to take control
of the program. Upper management in the court therefore has no reliable "pipeline"
for identifying problems and recommended solutions. Some large issues and some relatively minor
ones noted during the study are evidence that the court needs the capacity
to consolidate information about the services and see the program as an important
functional area. For example, the important relationship between costs for
interpreting services and case scheduling practices is not systematically
being examined and addressed. In a three day period of observing outcomes
of cases scheduled for contract interpreting services, we were able to document
over $1,300 of service costs attributable to continuances and breakdowns in
communications between court officer: "in the know" about late-breaking
case status information and the interpreter scheduling office (see Appendix
1). How much of these expenses is avoidable is unknown, but certainly some
are. Relatively
small issues observed during the study include: 1) case numbers are not included
on interpreter assignment and payment records, making inquiries and after
the fact auditing difficult; 2) there are forms designed to be completed by
the court officers in Municipal Court attesting to date and time of interpreter
use that are sometimes completed and sometimes not used. In any case, they
no longer appear to have a purpose. They collect somewhere, but nothing is
done with them. 3) Interpreters who appear at the central courthouse are expected
to sign in and sign out with the scheduling clerk. No similar system is used
for assignments elsewhere. 4) A relatively small but appreciable number of
interpreter assignments are paid for by the court for reasons that no one
at a management level appears to understand (see Appendix 3). 5) There appears
to be no one in the courtrooms charged with the responsibility to dismiss
interpreters when they are no longer needed during an evidentiary proceeding,
nor to locate and dismiss interpreters who are waiting for a case to come
up that will be continued without the appearance of the defendant (see Appendix
1) In summary,
the current structure appears to leave the court without anyone who is welt-positioned
to see the various pieces of this program as a functional whole.. The court should
establish an Office of Interpreter Services (0IS) to provide services
to all of the divisions of the Common Pleas and Municipal courts. Comment: This
recommendation could be implemented more easily when the new court facility
opens later this year. All of the interpreters now housed in the City Hall
could be provided central office space in the new facility. It is important
to note, however, that centralizing the management functions under a single
district wide off ice need not entail the physical centralization of all interpreters.
While keeping the interpreters together physically helps to facilitate collegiality
and a common sense of purpose, demand for services in the juvenile and family
divisions may best be met by retaining offices for interpreters in those locations.
This is a matter for careful study. If branch off ices for interpreters appears
necessary, the court should consider staffing those off ices on a rotating
basis, to increase the opportunity for all interpreters to share a balanced
work experience. Management
oversight of the OIS should be the responsibility of the Office of the district
Executive Administrator. Comment: The reasons for the recommendation to create
a central 01s are related to the need to eliminate the current fragmented
structure and uncertain lines of authority in the program. They are also related
to the obvious need to develop an increased capacity for routine collection
of program management data, analysis and planning. These are the some of the
central responsibilities of the district's Executive Administrator's Office. The OIS should
be responsible for recruiting, scheduling and monitoring the performance of
all per diem interpreters. The supervising
interpreter should be responsible for determination and administration of
professional issues and oversight of daily operations, including those involving
contract interpreters. Comment: The current supervising interpreter does not have a clear brief
to become involved in-over-all program improvement within the judicial district.
Someone should be tasked with these responsibilities. A senior operations
manager or court analyst, attached to the Office of the Executive Administrator
as per Recommendation 12, should be placed in charge of the OIS, with responsibility
for the following: · supervision and evaluation of the supervising interpreter; formulation of office policy;
·
design
of program management data collection procedures and evaluation of program
data; and
·
negotiations
with contract interpreter firms regarding issues of quality, as well as cost The OIS should
maintain and regularly analyze and report data related to Interpreter use
and service costs. Free lance
and contract interpreters should be required to present themselves to a court
officer when they appear for an assignment, and the court officer should be
required to complete a signed service verification form that includes:
·
case
number
·
language
·
date
·
check-in
time
·
dismissal
time
·
case
outcome. Comment: If this system is implemented, the verification form should be a required attachment to invoices submitted by the interpreters to the 0IS for verification of service. The form need not be passed along to the accounting office, but should be retained for auditing and statistical purposes. If data is not regularly extracted from these forms and compiled for program analysis purposes, however, a valuable opportunity is lost. The data would - allow the OIS manager to examine the relationship between scheduled time and actual time, and the relationship between the scheduled purpose of the hearing and the actual outcome.
VI. Recommendations Relating to Court Rules and Judges
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