I am requesting the following information regarding your council's expenditure on foreign language translation and interpretation services. For the calendar year 2024-2025 as well as the fiscal year 2024/2025, please provide the following. For clarity, this request is limited to services for non-English spoken or written languages (e.g., Polish, Urdu, Arabic). Please exclude any costs related to British Sign Language (BSL), other sign languages, Braille, or accessibility services for disabilities, unless they cannot be easily separated out within the statutory FOI cost limits. Please specify if these costs have been included.

1. The total amount spent on foreign language translation (written documents) and interpretation (spoken, including telephone and face-to-face) services across all council departments/services.
BSL could not be excluded from our response.

January 2024 to December 2024 Translation & Interpretation Services: £58,612.63
April 2025 to March 2025Translation & Interpretation Services: £70,213.35

2. The number of foreign language translation/interpretation requests received and fulfilled in each year (e.g., 2024-25: 500 requests, 450 fulfilled).
2024: 497
2025: 622

3. A list of the 15 most common foreign language translation requests received with number of requests and fulfilled (e.g., 1. Polish 250 requests, 100 fulfilled)
2024:
Arabic: 132
Pashto: 74
Vietnamese: 56
Polish: 36
Portuguese: 36
Chinese (Cantonese): 28
Farsi (Persian): 28
Urdu: 27
Kurdish/Kurdish Sorani: 26
Albanian: 24
Romanian: 21
Tigrinya: 15
Afghan Pashtu: 14
Arabic Sudanese: 14
Ukrainian: 13

2025:
Arabic: 87
Pashto: 22
Vietnamese: 84
Polish: 32
Portuguese: 11
Chinese (Cantonese): 19
Farsi (Persian): 20
Urdu: 54
Kurdish/Kurdish Sorani: 8
Albanian: 24
Romanian: 66
Tigrinya: 12
Afghan Pashtu: 7
Arabic Sudanese: 6
Ukrainian: 12

4. Details of any current contracts or providers for these services (e.g., provider name, contract start/end dates, total value (excluding commercially sensitive pricing). If the council uses an inhouse team rather than contractors, please specify this.
DA Languages Ltd - Refer to Contracts register:
https://procontract.due-north.com/ContractsRegister/Index?resetFilter=True&applyFilter=True&p=679bb2ba-7898-4a4c-b4e3-c8eb6a07a3dc&v=1
January 2024 to December 2024: £23,256.73
April 2025 to March 2025: £24,043.07

Prestige Network
January 2024 to December 2024: £35,355.90
April 2025 to March 2025: £46,170.28