Documents show that once Oldham Council has finished the latest round of service & budget cuts it intends to spend money creating a business case to deliver cooperative interpreter & translation services across Oldham to cope with the huge burden of Oldham residents now speaking at least 82 different first languages. The NHS, schools, council and Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) services have all reported facing sizable increases in the need for interpretation services. In 2014-15 the council broke it’s own contractual rules by underestimating demand and spending £75,000 on translation services with a single provider without having advertised for language service contract tenders.
