During the financial year 2024-25 Bournemouth Interpreters’ Group continued to be the primary supplier of interpreting and translation services to almost all parts of the NHS within Dorset, as well as being one of the main contracted suppliers of these services to the various local authorities (specifically BCP and Dorset Councils), particularly in the areas of children and adult social care services, housing and education. As such, we have been able to continue to address our core aim of facilitating access to local public services for speakers of languages other than English in an area where the migrant population is small but not insignificant. The Group is also used by many local solicitors under Legal Aid provisions, and provides oral interlocutors for GCSE and A level examinations in many minority languages offered for examination in schools across Dorset and beyond. Our central interpreter booking facility (running alongside the provider direct online access route which has become our USP over recent years) raises modest administrative fees which are dedicated to keeping the organisation running on a small financial outlay with few significant ongoing running costs. We do not employ any staff, but as Directors run the company in a voluntary capacity. As in previous years, profits have enabled us to attend and contribute to important meetings in the public and voluntary sector and remain a respected voice both for providers of language services and for those in the community who benefit from the availability of our services. Our continued participation in consultative forums ensures that there is a voice for minority language communities with an influence on policy-making decisions. Profits have also been used to provide all interpreters with adequate public liability and professional indemnity insurance cover, and in maintaining and developing our website – our central resource. We have now been able to invest in the addition of a semi-automated interpreter bookings system via an online portal, thus reducing our administrative workload and costs. We also continue to invest some of the profits in professional development workshops on a range of relevant issues for our member-interpreters, and we have introduced a professional development grant which members can apply for to enable them to participate in individual online training courses. With the evacuation of families from Afghanistan in the late summer 2021 BCP Council instigated a resettlement programme and we used our own funds to supply interpreting and translation support to the families at no cost to the local authority. We continue to support this resettlement programme with interpreters and translations, and now also supply similar services to Dorset Council. Arising from these resettlement programmes we have also now recruited former Afghan military interpreters to join our membership, a continuing benefit both to us as an organisation and to these individuals as they seek to integrate into the community here. We adopted a similar approach with the Homes for Ukraine scheme, which saw the arrival of a number of Ukrainians in BCP and Dorset and resulted in an increased need for language support services, and have recruited suitably qualified Ukrainians to our interpreter membership. More details of how we exist to bridge the language barrier in some sections of the local community can be found at www.bournemouthinterpreters.org.uk

Stakeholders: Members of the Group, Service Providers, General Public Group members are consulted on any major issues, at informal gatherings and at our AGM, or where necessary collectively via e-mail. One of our member-interpreters serves as a Membership Administrator, to ensure this link is well maintained. Advice and support is offered to all members when issues arise, and there is an area of the website dedicated to support and guidance documentation. We also maintain a company group on LinkedIn, to which members are encouraged to contribute freely. Stakeholder consultation occurs regularly in various formats. Alongside individual discussions with regard to needs and (where they arise) concerns with relevant staff in the various service provider clients we supply, we are members of the local Community Action Network (CAN), and work closely with Dorset REC. We are also represented on a number of consultative forums, and regularly attend and contribute to meetings and consultations across the whole range of public sector services locally. Feedback on individual assignments is always encouraged and welcomed, and where any minor concerns have been raised, these have been addressed promptly in consultation with those raising the concern. Feedback is overwhelmingly positive. Those members of the public who have benefitted from our services are, to the best of our knowledge, also satisfied, although it is in the nature of our work that the interpreting is confidential and we remain as impartial and distanced from the clients as possible. Should complaints ever arise, we have a clearly documented complaints and disciplinary procedure in place.

No remuneration was received

No transfer of assets other than for full consideration