Bridging language barriers – processing cases when individuals do not speak Swedish

This audit shows that the Social Insurance Agency, the Pensions Agency and the Tax Agency have, in part, chosen different ways of bridging language barriers in processing cases in which the individual concerned does not speak Swedish. The Social Insurance Agency aims to engage professional interpreters and translators for their case processing and engages interpreters to a much greater extent than other audited government agencies. The Pensions Agency rather aims to primarily use multilingual employees. The Tax Agency’s approach is based in Swedish being the official language used by the agency, and the agency does not essentially use interpreters at all within the case type examined by the Swedish National Audit Office.

The Swedish National Audit Office can conclude that the choice of tools primarily used for bridging language barriers has implications that the agencies must be aware of and able to manage. Although the agencies’ governance differs in these respects, several of the audit’s findings are common to all the audited agencies.

AI services for transcription and translation may, in the long term, improve effectiveness in case processing when the individual concerned does not speak Swedish. Progress is rapid and this audit shows that the agencies are working on different solutions. The services must be of high quality and user-friendly to provide real efficiency gains, and the agencies are not there yet.

This audit shows that there are deficiencies in the agencies’ quality assurance procedures. The audited agencies all use multilingual staff to bridge language barriers in case processing. However, the Swedish National Audit Office notes that there are no quality assurance processes or procedures for inhouse interpretation and translation. Neither do the agencies offer any training in how to hold conversations in the presence of an interpreter. Case officers do not receive any training in processing cases in English either, even though many conversations with non-Swedish-speakers are conducted in English. This risks leading to communication problems that can ultimately lead to additional work for the agencies and decisions being made on the wrong grounds.

While government agencies translate a large quantity of documents that are introduced into the cases, documents that the agencies send to the individual, such as decisions, are essentially not translated at all. Therefore, it is the assessment of the Swedish National Audit Office that the agencies are not doing all they can to ensure that the individual can understand their case. This approach also risks leading to the individual contacting the agency again, thereby creating additional work. The Swedish National Audit Office considers that the government agencies could take greater responsibility to ensure the individual’s understanding – thus avoiding costs – by translating parts of their decisions to a greater extent than currently.

This audit shows that the government agencies do not systematically monitor the use and costs of purchasing external interpretation and translation services. Nor do agencies monitor how much time multilingual employees spend on helping colleagues with interpretation and translation. This means that the agencies lack information on the extent of the resources spent on this. Furthermore, they do not know to what extent this is done at the expense of other tasks. All in all, this means that the agencies lack a basis for assessing whether or not the tools they use are cost-effective.