Mouthpiece: Cost of Gaelic translation may prove too high

Published on Saturday 8 August 2009 11:08

THE vexed question of the Scottish Parliament outsourcing the Gaelic translation of its Annual Report to India has sparked controversy and mirth in equal measure.

As operations director of an Edinburgh-based global translations company, I suggest that we take a deep breath and a closer look at the considerations involved.

First, it would appear that the Scottish Parliament has a contract with a UK company to produce all its publications. It seems that it is this company, not the Parliament itself, which sub-contracted the translation to India.

If, as is suggested, Gaelic language staff within Holyrood were indeed too busy to handle the translation themselves, then the Parliament would have been at least remiss, if not in breach of contract, had it farmed out the work to another company.

The UK company that handles Holyrood's publications, it is believed, is not a Scottish company. The choice of this company raises the same issue, viz. protectionism versus the free (global) market.

Throw in regulations governing the process of tendering, membership of the EU, and cost-effective solutions in a global economy and you have a cauldron of complexities.

On the one hand, I find it disappointing that it was not a Scottish company which won the original publishing contract – and Lingo24 is a translations company, not a publishing house, so it is not a matter of sour grapes.

On the other hand, as a business tax-payer in Scotland, I am thankful that the Parliament appears to be trying to control its costs.

There is, however, another consideration to add to the mix. If the report of the costs involved for this translation is to be believed, they are astonishingly, if not frighteningly, low for the industry standard (at least half to one-third less than the norm for full professional translation and additional editing). This begs the question of whether quality has been sacrificed for cost.

On this score, I am relieved that the translation was handed by the company in India to a Gaelic translations service in the Western Isles.

Nevertheless, the route was unnecessarily circuitous and the involvement of so many sub-contractors leads me to believe that the figures quoted for costs are unreliable.

They are certainly uneconomic. The final costs for the Gaelic translation of the Parliament's Annual Report may turn out to be more than they bargained for.

Jack Waley-Cohen is operations director for Lingo24