Much has been said about the national shortage of British Sign Language/English Interpreters compared to countries such as Finland.
Over the years, various initiatives have been set up to increase their numbers and improve professional regulation.
In Scotland, there are around 80 BSL/English interpreters registered with NRCPD or The Scottish Association of Sign Language Interpreters (SASLI), covering approximately 13,000 BSL users.
Action on Hearing Loss (AHL) estimates that there around 850,000 people with a hearing loss in Scotland.
The majority of these communicate using English. They rely upon communication support provided by speech to text reporters (STTRs), electronic or manual notetakers, and lipspeakers.
Collectively, this group is known as Access to Communication in English (ACE) professionals. NRCPD is the only body which holds a register for all of the ACE professions.
So there are lots of registered ACE professionals, aren’t there?
In fact, there are only THREE registered professionals for the whole of Scotland. Yes, just three! That is roughly one registered electronic notetaker or lipspeaker for every 283,000 D/deaf people.
A further eight are eligible, but not currently registered with NRCPD. The figures are similar for Northern Ireland and Wales, with only a moderate improvement for England.
Deaf English users are unable to access registered communication professionals when and how they need to.
Signature withdrew its entire portfolio of ACE qualifications in 2011. Since then, there has been no training pathway towards NRCPD registration for notetakers or lipspeakers anywhere in the UK.
To compound the problem, NRCPD no longer recognises the old Level 2 lipspeaking or electronic/manual notetaking awards for registration purposes.
A new Signature lipspeaking award is due to be launched soon. For electronic notetaking however, the only formal qualification available is an Open College Network Award. This is run by training centres in London and Manchester. This award is still to be accredited by NRCPD and does not lead to registration status.
Why is registration important? NRCPD Registration ensures that you have met the national occupational standards (NOS). Registrants agree to adhere to a code of conduct and abide by a formal complaints procedure. This protects service users and ensures that confidentiality will be maintained.
Registrants must also hold professional indemnity insurance, have undergone criminal records checks and commit to at least 30 hours of continuous professional development each year.
In Scotland, there are no registered verbatim speech to text reporters. Therefore, electronic notetakers provide a non verbatim communication service.They work in the same domains as BSL/English interpreters.This includes all levels of court, police interviews, medical and tribunal settings.
The Scottish legal system largely recognises the importance of using qualified, registered BSL/English interpreters. However, this is not the case with electronic notetakers. Perhaps because there are so few. The emergence of “Remote Respeakers” is set to complicate matters further still.
Remote respeakers use voice recognition technology to produce live captions at meetings and events. Currently there is no recognised respeaker training programme that leads to NRCPD registration.
For BSL/English interpreters, there is a risk of co-working with unqualified, unregistered electronic notetakers or respeakers.
Each of these produce a permanent record of the interpreter’s translation. Increasingly, they are expected to provide a transcript of the discussion not just to clients but event organisers. The transcript might then be shared with a wider audience or even published online.
If a complaint is made to a registration panel about the accuracy of an interpreter’s words in a transcript, only the registered communication professional can be disciplined. How would this affect the interpreter’s insurance cover? This has yet to be tested.
What can be done to address this situation? Deaf people should be able to access communication support in their own language. Whenever, and however they need it.
If booking an electronic notetaker or lipspeaker, ask if they are qualified. Ask if the communication professional is registered.
If they are not, ask why not.
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Richard Turner
August 1, 2014
Thank you for sharing this informative article. Just to let you know that my wife registered for the electronic notetaking course recently at the City Lit and was told one week before it was due to start that it had been cancelled due to government funding cuts and restructuring at the college. We have been told that they have cut all manual and electronic note-taking courses there from now and made a lot of staff redundant. Now the only college in England providing a note-taking course is in Manchester. Since my wife lives in London she can’t possibly do a six-week course in Manchester. With such a chronic shortage of qualified note-taking professionals across the country I think it is appalling that deaf people will have even less access to the communication support that they need in the future. We need to campaign against this.
Marie
August 1, 2014
What about SSE interpreter?
There’s more BSL interpreters but few SSE…
Dan Sumners (@sumnersdan)
August 1, 2014
Here at Signature and NRCPD we’re glad this issue continues to be discussed.
In particular, thanks for emphasising the importance of using registered professionals. NRCPD exists to protect people who use them by performing the checks you mention and
raising standards.
We are well aware of the shortage of communication professionals. Increasing their numbers is central to our work.
The shortage is due to a number of reasons. Deaf people themselves are often unaware of the range of professionals available. They aren’t well recognised career paths. Funding for adult education has fallen considerably in recent years.
We’re addressing it in a number of ways. We’ll be working with partners to promote communication careers to a wider audience. When lobbying government, for example over Access to Work, we’re pushing for better guidance about the types of professional available.
We argue that funding for training in communication with deaf and deafblind people should be a special case because it’s needed to provide equal access to public services. But we’re also identifying and promoting other sources of funding, such as advanced learning loans. And we hope to support employers to develop apprentice routes to communication careers.
But, whilst there are several recognised qualifications for sign language interpreters and translators, we know there are few opportunities for individuals to train to work with deaf people whose first language is English. Over the next couple of years we’ll be working to make these registers more accessible.
For example, and as mentioned, from autumn a Signature Level 3 Certificate in Lipspeaking Skills will be available. There will also be deafblind units that can be combined into a Level 3 or Level 6 qualification.
Central to success in these efforts are our partnerships with education institutions, professional associations, governments and, of course, communication professionals and those who use them.
So thanks again for raising this issue. We look forward to working with everyone affected to turn the situation around.
iheartsubtitles
August 1, 2014
Informative article. Also worrying, and as a side topic it makes me wonder how on earth people who may wish to pursue this as a career know what the correct path to take is?
Beth
August 1, 2014
Dan, as the article highlights, there are NO training courses for Lipspeaking, Notetaking or STTR anywhere in the UK that lead to NRCPD registration. Not “a few” – NONE. ZERO.
It’s not the case that there is a shortage of notetakers and lipspeakers simply because deaf people don’t know about them or there is a funding drought.
There is a shortage because Signature got rid of all its ACE awards 3 years ago and didn’t replace them. Even before then, Signature did not promote these courses. As someone else said upthread, there is now only ONE training centre for any kind of formal training in notetaking in the whole of the UK. And that course isn’t recognised by Signature.
It’s great that a new lipspeaking award is about to be rolled out. But what does Signature plan to do in the interim about the lack of any electronic/manual notetaking award that allows holders to register?
NRCPD has just published its findings from its survey about mandatory registration. How can you promote mandatory registration for speech to text reporters and notetakers if there is literally no way for them to achieve registration?
Dan Sumners (@sumnersdan)
August 11, 2014
Sorry for not replying sooner Beth!
Yes, as I say, we’re working to make the registers accessible. We’re particularly looking at the notetaker registration issue. Unfortunately I can’t say more than that at the moment.
But the shortage of professionals and the shortage of registered professionals isn’t the same thing.
Of course the shortage of professionals is in part due to the lack of courses, but I think it’s more complicated than that. As you say, there’s no ‘simply’ about it. Many factors play a part.
For example, if there were lots of people demanding the professionals, there would be more people demanding courses. And if there were more people demanding courses there would be more courses.
Regarding statutory regulation, all we asked was if people supported the aim. As you say, it would be foolish to say we should have statutory regulation now of professionals that can’t meet registration requirements.
Toby Dawson
August 1, 2014
Is it 13,000 BSL users or is it people that are able to use BSL as a language too? The Scottish Government provided the information box via their census unlike the census for England and Wales unfortunately.
It’s good to see the Scottish Government taking responsibilities in finding out on how many BSL users are there in Scotland.
And as for the shortage of qualified professionals, that’s another legacy of Scotland being treated as a region rather than a country.
When you look at Finland, they have a population of 5.4 million people, and it is very similar to Scotland’s.
Basically a huge factor is in the political attitude of Finland, and hopefully with Scotland gaining independence, and with Scotland being a left leaning political country, I can’t see no reason why Scotland cannot but improve in the long term future.
Robert Mandara
August 4, 2014
I have been living in Finland for almost 20 years and am wondering what evidence you have that the situation here is any better than the UK? I don’t use sign language (BSL or FSL) but would still find a speech to text or interpreting service useful if only it were available to me. It seems to me that sign language interpreters and note-takers are extremely thin on the ground here too. I’m pretty sure that Finnish grass isn’t greener!
Toby Dawson
August 4, 2014
Oh aye it is when it comes to sign language interpreters!
“The interpreter service is developing constantly; there are now approximately 550 practicing interpreters across the country.”
Taken from this webpage via https://www15.uta.fi/FAST/FIN/A14PAPS/jm-sign.html
Envy is the word that comes into mind when you read on.
Robert Mandara
August 11, 2014
Thanks Toby for the interesting link.
It is worth noting that Finnish deaf culture is rather different to that in the UK. In the UK most deaf people who can benefit from hearing aids, wear hearing aids. The remaining Deaf (big “D”) community is relatively small and there is less need to use sign language and interpretation. In Finland only a small proportion wear hearing aids and the remaining Deaf community is relatively large. It follows that the use of sign language and sign language interpretation should be greater to compensate.
While comparing statistics, don’t forget to compare the bigger picture. 🙂
Author
August 11, 2014
Author of piece here. Thanks everyone for all your comments so far!
Robert, just wanted to clarify something. Users of communication support in the UK often wear hearing aids, and I include the full spectrum of deafness here – BSL users, deafened, hard of hearing.
It’s not the case that because someone is issued with a pair of hearing aids, they will automatically no longer require communication support – whether that is a BSL interpreter, a STTR, notetaker or lipspeaker.
I think it is quite a dangerous assumption – and one that unfortunately a lot of the hearing community seem to make – that hearing aids produce/restore ‘normal’ hearing and so hearing aid users don’t need comm support.
Did I pick you up incorrectly there? Apologies if so.
Relative to Scotland, I read this 2010 report when writing my article:
http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/publication_1733_0.pdf
As you will see, the populations of Finland and Scotland are very similar, with Scotland being slightly less populous. The report states that Finland has around 5,000 Deaf People, and 750 or so registered interpreters, giving a ratio of SL users to terps of 1:6.
In 2010, it was assumed there were around 6,000 BSL users in Scotland and less than 60 registered interpreters, giving a ratio of 1:100.
These figure are now obviously out of date. The 2011 Scottish census indicated the number of Scottish BSL users may be as high as 13,000. Around 80 interpreters are now registered in Scotland.
Unless Finland has since revised its figures for Finnish sign language users, it appears on the face of it that Scotland at least may have a higher percentage of sign language users relative to the population size.
I would love to know what the numbers are like for registered/qualified speech to text reporters in Finland.
A 2013 study carried out by the UK pressure group ‘Pardon – Access to Communication for All’ cited 87 registered speech to text reporters in the Netherlands for a population of 1.5m deaf or hard of hearing.
By comparison –
Scotland: estimated 850,00 deaf/Hoh. 0 NRCPD registered speech to text reporters.
Wales: estimated 530,000 deaf/Hoh. 2 NRCPD registered speech to text reporters.
Northern Ireland: estimated 300,000 deaf/Hoh. 2 NRCPD registered speech to text reporters.
Robert
August 11, 2014
To the author (I’m not sure where my comment will appear), I don’t have any official Finnish data (or Scottish data for that matter) and my comments are only based on my long-term real-life observations.
I agree with you about dangerous assumptions but should point out that, with a hearing aid and a cochlear implant, I’m hardly a member of the hearing community. I have never been able to get any communication support here, except at the hospital where they’re motivated by the fear of getting sued if I misunderstand something. Which begs the question, who’s getting all of the support?!
Matt Brown
August 7, 2014
Why is registration for note-takers, lipspeakers and STTRs even an issue?
If I hold a qualification (ie. if the postcode lottery allowed me to find one within 100 miles of where I live), and I hold any necessary criminal records checks and insurance policies, and I have references from previous employers and can demonstrate experience in the specialist setting, why would I need to be “registered”? What extra benefits or assurances does that actually confer? It is the qualifications that are mapped to National Occupational Standards, not the simple fact of paying to be listed on a database. (Not that NOSs have to mean anything in themselves – there are NOSs for reiki healing and homeopathy).
A few years ago, I had the choice between blowing all of my savings on either a Level 3 certificate in Communication Support Work – an extra A-level, essentially – or on about half/two-thirds of a Master’s degree. Guess which I chose.
Dan Sumners (@sumnersdan)
August 11, 2014
Hi Matt
The benefit to a service user is they know you have the right training, keep that training up, and have agreed to abide by a Code of Conduct. They can also complain to an objective body if something goes wrong. In short, they are kept safe.
The benefit to a service provider is greater peace of mind, for all the reasons above.
The benefit to the communication professional is service providers and service users are more likely to book you for work. And, perhaps most importantly, you are demonstrating you take the safety of your clients very seriously by providing an objective guarantee of your fitness to practise.
Andrew Dewey
August 8, 2014
Indeed, there is a lack of ENT’s and Speech to text reporters in Scotland. The main reasons for this are the lack of training and qualification routes and demand. With HoH people being the largest group of deaf people, it does not make sense that there are more interpreters than ENT’s. In Scotland we had a group of 8 ENT’s advance from the old level 2 to the Signature level 3 in 2009. Shortly thereafter, the Level 3 course ceased. Out of those 8 who qualified, all of them are practicing, however not all of them have registered with NRCPD or ANP.
Tim
August 9, 2014
Actually I am not sure I am right, I think its not enough BSL interpreters supporting BSL users at education, public services and work in Scotland. I cannot stick BSL interpreter all the time, imagine I am at hospital where they told me that they cannot bring BSL Interpreters. I have to choose alternative and similar deaf technology with UbiDuo2 (no wireless necessarily and standalone without appointment and BSL interpreter) also the hospitals don’t have wireless network for patients and visitors), remote captioning and interpreting service if you have your mobile phone or tablet with 3G or 4G, also Bluetooth with Google Glass.
Is it correct figure in UK or just England 1 BSL Interpreter in 250 deaf BSL Users?
Re-speak or retype is difference from remote captioning service providers , I recommend stereo typist which is modern and using BBC subtitles now but depend the people like to see types of remote captioning service technology.
Please contact Microlink PC (UK) Ltd (FAO: Tim Scannell) for FREE demonstration for UbiDuo2, remote captioning, Google Glass with remote captioning, Digisystem and WPA (work placement assessment) and more new technologies with your feedback. Microlink is largest UK largest independent Assistive Technology.
Alison Thomas
August 10, 2014
I too am extremely concerned about the lack of Notetaking courses and therefore newly qualified Notetakers. I work in an FE College with a team of Notetakers who all have the Level 2 Signature qualification and would be keen to progress in their professional development to a Level 3 qualification but there are no courses available. We have a great reputation for Deaf Support but if we cannot recruit qualified Notetakers we may be forced to employ unqualified staff…………………
Miriam
August 12, 2014
As the Association of Notetaking Professionals (ANP), we have our own register of practicing note takers, both manual and electronic. We only list qualified people – the qualification is either the old CACDP/Signature one, or the current OCN Level 3. It is true that the OCN is currently the only qualification being delivered.
It is an enduring frustration to ANP that despite all our efforts, NRCPD do not recognise the only available qualification. However, I believe that is now being addressed – watch this space.
The gap in provision, since the withdrawal of the Signature qualification, has meant that fewer people are going through training, and fewer still are qualified. Many who qualify do not launch themselves as self employed communication support, choosing the stability of employment.
All the above being said, there are still very few qualified professional note takers, either manual or electronic, the figures highlighted in the article make this clear.
If you are looking for note takers you are welcome to visit our member register, where you will find qualified language service professionals. We would always recommend you ask about DBS/CRB of any language service professional you use. http://www.anpnotetakers.co.uk/member-register/