At a time when interpreters face growing economic pressures and public services continue to rely heavily on outsourced interpreting arrangements, there is an urgent need to ask difficult but necessary questions about whether existing approaches are contributing to the crisis facing interpreters and service users. In this article, I argue that there are three main reasons why the current approach of the National Register of Public Service Interpreters (NRPSI) risks failing both interpreters and the public. This discussion is particularly timely because NRPSI has a new CEO. New leadership creates an opportunity not only for organisational renewal, but also for re-examining long-standing assumptions about governance, outsourcing, and responsibility.

Unlike trade associations, NRPSI presents itself primarily as a body that exists to protect the public by maintaining standards among public service interpreters. Yet there is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the current system. NRPSI is funded by interpreters themselves. Historically, the register was established with support from both public bodies and practitioners. Today, however, the burden of funding falls on interpreters working in a profession increasingly characterised by low pay, financial insecurity, fragmented work, and declining bargaining power, as findings from my doctoral research show.

This raises a simple question: if NRPSI exists to protect the public, why are interpreters carrying the financial burden for maintaining that protection? More importantly, does NRPSI’s current approach risk contributing to the very conditions that undermine both interpreting quality and interpreter sustainability?

These questions become particularly important when considering whose interests are served by current models of professional recognition. While protection of title may aim to strengthen professional status, it also raises questions about inclusion and exclusion: who can access that protection, under what conditions, and whether the pursuit of regulatory recognition risks creating additional barriers for practitioners already experiencing financial insecurity.

I argue that this contradiction can be understood through three main dimensions:

1. Absolving Intermediaries of Responsibility

One of the most striking features of NRPSI’s public discussions about standards in public service interpreting is the extent to which responsibility is placed on interpreters themselves.

This tendency was visible in the Working Together framework, developed by professional organisations in collaboration with the Association of Translation Companies (ATC), an interest group representing Language Service Providers (LSPs), which often function as intermediaries. The framework emphasised stakeholder collaboration, credentialism, and workforce development. However, there was no discussion of the role of commercial intermediaries that hold public contracts and shape the conditions under which interpreters work.

Questions about procurement practices, contractual arrangements, LSPs’ profit margins, and responsibility for working conditions remained largely absent.

Over the past three years, I have continued to correspond with individuals representing NRPSI. The previous CEO, Mike Orlov, repeatedly asserted that existing approaches are ethical and that current arrangements protect service users with limited English proficiency. Yet these claims have often not been supported by substantial evidence demonstrating how current systems address the structural conditions affecting interpreting quality.

This is particularly significant because many of the problems affecting interpreting quality are not created by interpreters themselves. They are shaped by the systems within which interpreters work. Intermediaries hire interpreters and allocate work to them, thereby controlling who conduct the interpreting and influencing the conditions under which interpreting takes place.

The issue becomes clearer when viewed through the lens of intermediary responsibility. In an interview I conducted with him last year, discussing the responsibilities of private companies, Mike Orlov spoke about obligations to stakeholders and the broader consequences of corporate decision-making. He stated:

Almost all agencies are commercial bodies, focused on this year’s profit, which define dividends to be shared with shareholders. And of course, agencies chase not only short-term profits and dividends, but also focus on building longer term value, to increase the worth of the business. Agencies have a fiduciary duty to put shareholders first…

Such perspectives raise an obvious question for the interpreting sector: if commercial intermediaries exercise significant influence over work allocation, remuneration, and working conditions, why are they so often absent from discussions about responsibility for outcomes?

Public protection cannot be achieved solely by regulating interpreters while paying insufficient attention to the institutions and commercial actors that shape the conditions under which interpreting takes place.

2. Prioritising Credentialism Over Competence

A second contradiction concerns the relationship between credentials and competence.

NRPSI places significant emphasis on its chosen diploma pathway for public service interpreting, while appearing to give limited recognition to other forms of expertise, including university degrees, years of professional experience, and situated knowledge—for example, when a trained lawyer, nurse, or doctor interprets within their field of specialisation. However, the assumption that specific credentials necessarily provide the best measure of competence deserves greater scrutiny.

At present, there appears to be no evidence demonstrating that one specific credential pathway consistently produces better outcomes than alternative combinations of training, academic education, professional experience, and specialist knowledge.

This risks creating a system in which compliance becomes easier to measure than competence.

More importantly, an exclusive focus on credentials can divert attention away from factors that may have a much greater influence on interpreting quality, including preparation time, workload, working conditions, remuneration, safety, and professional support. Competence does not exist in isolation from the environment in which interpreters are expected to work.

Furthermore, given the documented financial pressures affecting many interpreters, this raises ethical concerns to increase financial barriers to professional recognition without clear evidence that these costs directly improve quality or public protection.

Ultimately, the public is protected by competent, supported, and fairly treated interpreters—not by credentials alone.

3. Prioritising Long-Term Regulatory Ambitions Over Immediate Material Conditions

The third contradiction concerns priorities. For many years, significant attention has been devoted to discussions about professional recognition, regulation, and protection of title. These ambitions are understandable and may offer important benefits in the long term for complaint interpreters. Mr Orlov stated in my interview with him:

NRPSI’s vision is clear; locking together the need for advocating standards and securing fair remuneration for qualified and experienced practitioners. Indivisible and vital goals which need to be achieved to secure the vision for the profession.”

However, the profession is currently facing immediate challenges that cannot be deferred. It is ethically problematic to make the improvement of labour conditions dependent on the future achievement of protection of title. Interpreters are currently reporting financial insecurity, declining rates, increased precarity, and growing difficulties sustaining careers in public service interpreting.

At the same time, the UK Government has acknowledged that existing frameworks can leave vulnerable workers exposed to exploitation and without core employment protections.

Against this backdrop, an emphasis on future regulatory ambitions can appear disconnected from the urgent realities many interpreters face today. A profession cannot be protected in the future if it becomes economically unsustainable in the present.

The question is not whether protection of title matters. The question is who is excluded from that protection of title, and whether it should take precedence over addressing the conditions that are currently pushing many practitioners towards financial insecurity and professional exit.

Conclusion

The central contradiction facing NRPSI is straightforward.

It presents itself as a mechanism for protecting the public, yet much of its activity focuses on regulating interpreters rather than examining the wider systems that shape interpreting quality.

It emphasises credentials, while giving less attention to the material conditions that enable competence.

It pursues long-term regulatory ambitions while many practitioners face immediate economic pressures.

These are not merely professional concerns. They are questions about public protection itself.

Interpreting quality depends not only on individual competence but also on the conditions under which interpreters work. Therefore, protecting the public requires more than regulating interpreters. It requires examining the structures, incentives, and institutions that shape the profession as well as holding intermediaries and public bodies accountable.

About the author
Fardous Bahbouh is a researcher and broadcast interpreter specialising in labour rights and the political economy of the translation and interpreting industry. Alongside her academic research, she continues to work with agencies and production companies that value interpreters and translators and provide fair working conditions. She also runs a small translation company and does not generalise critiques of unfair intermediaries to all translation companies or agencies.

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