Languages provider wins contract with one of UK’s biggest government departments

Manchester language services provider, DA Languages, has been awarded new contracts with several police forces, and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The work for the DWP involves interpreting and translating services.

The contract, effective from May this year, will see the company support the DWP in ensuring that limited and non-English speakers – including BSL (British Sign Language) speakers – are able to access services through the use of remote interpreting, face-to-face interpreting and written translation.

Matthew Taylor, DA Languages’ managing director, said: “We understand the difficulties a language barrier can present when trying to access essential services. As a business, ensuring that communities, including the deaf community and limited and non-English speakers, can access these services effectively is at the heart of what we do.”

The DWP is responsible for welfare, pensions and child maintenance policy.

As the UK’s biggest public service department, it administers the State Pension and a range of working age, disability and ill health benefits to around 20 million claimants and customers.

DA Languages provides more than 450 languages and dialects, with a network of in excess of 8,000 linguists.

It has also recently been awarded new contracts with police forces in the South of England: Thames Valley Police, Hampshire Constabulary, Dorset Police, Gloucestershire Constabulary, Wiltshire Police, Avon & Somerset Police and Devon & Cornwall Police.

In December, 2021 it was acquired by European private equity firm IK Partners from Foresight Group for an undisclosed sum.

Foresight, a listed infrastructure and private equity investment manager, invested into DAL from its Regional Investment Fund in May 2018.

In July, 2021, the business clinched its largest contract win, so far, a three-year deal with the NHS in Yorkshire, worth more than £1m a year.