In an increasingly-diverse society, the challenge local authorities face is how to provide a seamless service to the various nationalities living and working in their area, in a language they will understand.
Language difficulty is one of the integration problems faced by immigrant communities (confirmed in a report called Understanding Muslim Ethnic Communities, produced by the Department of Communities and Local Government in April 2009). Housing is frequently considered to be one of the main problems with assimilation into the local community.
The pattern of concentration of immigrant communities is frequently down to complex reasons including access to housing and cultural facilities. Older communities such as the Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Turkish generally feel that they are well integrated, as do older exiles from countries such as Iraq and Iran who arrived some decades ago.
But, according to Understanding Muslim Ethnic Communities, more recent arrivals are facing many of the same integration problems originally experienced by longer established communities, including language difficulties and lack of appropriate housing.
That's where Prestige Network comes in: we are already working closely with local authorities throughout the UK, supporting them with their interpreting and translation needs in their housing teams.
Our tailored service means that we adapt our provision to the exact language needs of local authority housing services teams.
Location can play a significant part in a local authority's requirement for language services and can influence the local authority team requiring the services of Prestige Network.
The whole make-up of the Eastern European influx is changing quite rapidly - from Polish to Ukrainian and Lithuanian and other smaller Eastern European countries - bringing with it its own challenges. Local authorities may feel, for example, that their housing services team is prepared for Polish, but are now finding an increased number of enquiries from Ukrainians.
A shift in the dynamics of the Eastern European population of the early 21st century into the UK - with more families settling here as opposed to single people - is also producing a different requirement on local authority services.
Housing services are therefore being pushed further up the public agenda. Again, Prestige Network is here to help. Our interpreters are all CRB checked and any confidentiality requirements of our work are strictly met.
To find out more about how Prestige Network can help you to ensure that your housing policy is socially inclusive, call our local authority specialist Colin Dudley on 01635 866888. Or check out how we work with local authorities.
Location can play a significant part in a local authority's requirement for language services. One such local authority is one of our (Prestige Network's) customers - Shepway District Council, which uses mainly telephone interpreting and occasionally face-to-face interpreting.
A spokesman said: "We are based in Folkestone, a few minutes away from the Channel Tunnel and only a few miles away from the ferry port of Dover and regional airports. Our location, coupled with a growing population for whom English is not their first language means that we have a frequent need for language services across a whole raft of disciplines, including customer service, housing, and revenue and benefits. Our requirement spans a range of languages, including Czech, Spanish, Slovak and Polish.
"Our need for language services is growing all the time so that we now find ourselves wanting an interpreter on a daily basis. To us it's important to be able to use a company which can provide interpreters instantly because much of our work means that we need to handle an issue as it happens - that gives us the confidence to keep going back to Prestige Network time and again."
