The feedbacks and suggestions from a diverse range of our clients over the years are invaluable for us to be able to understand two crucial aspects: a) the requirements in term of experience and skills specific to each type of task b) the different qualities 'wanted' by clients in an interpreter.

Many members of our assessment team have also acted as interpreter assessors for other organizations. Their advice adds a new dimension to the way we identify and develop a class of high quality interpreters.

* The multilevel testing procedure: Interpreters (both qualified and unqualified) in some court trials have become unwanted because the defence was able to find out how accurate their interpreting was when words spoken and interpreted were heard by all sides in court. A magistrate, speaking the language being interpreted, stopped an interpreter when he realized the interpretation wasn't correct. Another user has reflected that among around 20 interpreters of the same language they had worked with the difference was huge. Reality is really different and somewhat more subtle and diverse than a good speaker of the 2 languages would imagine. On the back of the many unsatisfactory interpreting stories we have classified interpreting tasks into different levels in term of difficulty and require our interpreters to take the test at each level before jobs of the same level are asked of them. We observe materials from popular interpreting tests and take into account many typical interpreting contexts to ensure that our tests set the linguistic requirements for interpreters to handle their tasks successfully.

** Scope of experience: It might be true that interpreting in hospital got little to do with legal issues but the opposite is not always true. The legal interpreting for tribunals frequently relates to the medical conditions of the appellant. Interpreting within criminal context can expand into different fields. In many jobs it is the scope of experience, rather than a single specialism , is what requires of the interpreter. We have a way to increase our interpreters' experience and competence while ensuring the safety (and reputation) for our clients.

*** Only 1 language permitted: Many of us speak different languages. Nevertheless, the difference between language A we know best and language B we know second-best can make it difficult for us to interpret for B as excellently as we can do for A. Our policy is to allow only one language. This is to safeguard any eventualities and ensure our clients the best services from our interpreters.