A huge furore greeted the announcement by the newly elected Mayor of Doncaster that translation services should be scrapped. This was proof positive that said mayor was either mad, stupid or racist - or possibly all three.
However, Peter Davies' proposals are, in truth, pretty close to the best practice advice from the Department for Communities & Local Government (DCLG):
“As our guidance on translation makes clear, we believe translation needs to be targeted and evidence-based; and provide a stepping stone to learning English. So we would expect areas to find out whether new migrants can speak English, only translate where they cannot and then make information packs bilingual or be clear about how people can learn English.”
Given that the implementation of the Mayor's policy is resulting in the redirection of funding to the provision of ESOL courses and support perhaps we should applaud Doncaster for being one of the few local councils to follow John Denham and the Labour Government's advice? Courses that, in a classic piece of dysfunctional government, Labour cut!
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