You asked
Could you please provide me with the costs for interpreters broken down by the different languages for interpreters in the previous 5 years?
Ideally, this information should include which department incurred the costs along with the number of calls for interpreters for any particular language.
We said
Thank you for your request.
The total approximate spend for interpreting services used by ONS is £46,000 for the five years. Please note this is approximate because this is a count of invoices containing interpreting in the title.
Please see the table below for a breakdown of spend by language;
| Row Labels | 12/13 | 13/14 | 14/15 | 15/16 | 16/17 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albanian | £49.06 | £26.19 | £20.66 | £37.89 | £119.47 |
| Amharic | £69.49 | £6.14 | £76.05 | ||
| Arabic | £169.72 | £224.55 | £518.98 | £231.24 | £277.18 |
| Armenian | £9.59 | ||||
| Bengali | £582.75 | £336.69 | £399.68 | £357.61 | £543.97 |
| Bulgarian | £2.23 | £41.08 | £212.29 | £249.66 | |
| Burmese | £36.69 | £22.04 | |||
| Cantonese | £306.49 | £240.23 | £206.65 | £234.37 | £17.80 |
| Czech | £136.40 | £138.83 | £160.02 | £67.21 | £103.72 |
| Farsi (Afghan) | £96.95 | £21.89 | £38.84 | £41.52 | £2.96 |
| Farsi (Persian) | £86.63 | £62.14 | £282.98 | £381.34 | £264.56 |
| French | £108.26 | £60.06 | £95.25 | £74.82 | |
| German | £0.36 | ||||
| Greek | £6.51 | £117.96 | |||
| Gujarati | £192.64 | £280.18 | £220.27 | £356.91 | £211.15 |
| Hebrew | £30.08 | ||||
| Hindi | £17.47 | £68.70 | £160.19 | £308.06 | £165.19 |
| Hungarian | £125.12 | £148.81 | £228.46 | £204.04 | £135.99 |
| Italian | £61.24 | £6.87 | £149.87 | £78.74 | |
| Japanese | £30.49 | £33.10 | £25.44 | ||
| Kurdish (Sorani) | £89.82 | £94.50 | £95.91 | £31.43 | |
| Latvian | £4.96 | £75.54 | £73.85 | ||
| Lingala | £0.61 | ||||
| Lithuanian | £197.93 | £198.09 | £112.17 | £27.36 | £138.32 |
| Mandarin | £272.28 | £191.89 | £119.38 | £533.11 | £180.04 |
| Mandinka | £4.73 | ||||
| Mirpuri | £5.59 | ||||
| Mongolian | £3.06 | ||||
| Nepali | £86.32 | £131.68 | £6.43 | £2.97 | |
| Oromo | £49.76 | ||||
| Pashto | £265.35 | £44.25 | £16.96 | £2.42 | |
| Polish | £1,975.43 | £1,746.78 | £1,788.95 | £1,706.67 | £1,426.92 |
| Portuguese | £235.30 | £116.39 | £131.95 | £349.18 | £169.85 |
| Punjabi | £403.94 | £484.85 | £379.35 | £405.74 | £513.54 |
| Romanian | £176.96 | £343.73 | £160.44 | £232.48 | £475.10 |
| Russian | £91.90 | £127.22 | £340.24 | £241.98 | £118.79 |
| Shona | £6.40 | ||||
| Sinhala | £20.23 | ||||
| Slovak | £172.50 | £120.55 | £162.22 | £315.53 | £48.72 |
| Somali | £90.82 | £251.60 | £112.74 | £158.18 | £112.95 |
| Spanish | £108.97 | £241.20 | £63.78 | £104.04 | £260.24 |
| Sylheti | £17.48 | ||||
| Tamil | £227.32 | £272.08 | £399.85 | £194.60 | £186.41 |
| Tetun | £14.80 | ||||
| Thai | £35.38 | £62.96 | £35.51 | £27.98 | |
| Tigrinya | £124.01 | £27.41 | £31.48 | £121.74 | |
| Turkish | £260.13 | £102.28 | £256.43 | £80.08 | £272.66 |
| Twi | £84.26 | ||||
| Urdu | £536.85 | £488.30 | £444.24 | £313.95 | £396.61 |
| Vietnamese | £59.69 | £73.53 | £22.89 | £150.14 | £6.93 |
| Welsh | £1.01 | ||||
| Not specified | £1,805 | £1,320 | £1,393 | £2,059 | £2,820 |
| Total | £9,204 | £8,117 | £8,430 | £9,980 | £9,759 |
Please note that we have only been able to identify the total values from the text within the invoices held on the system. Where a language has not been recorded, the total spend for interpreting costs have been added to the 'Not Specified' row.
Unfortunately, we do not hold information on the costs of interpreters for other government departments.