London, Sep 28 (IANS) Britain's police department has recorded a steep hike in its spending on language interpreters to now touch 21 million pounds a year, mainly due to the large influx of immigrants to the country.

In some cases, the spending on language interpreters shot up by 2,000 percent in the past five years, according to The Times newspaper.

"The demand for interpreters has increased to support people from a wide range of communities involved in the criminal justice system, whether victims, witnesses or offenders. Interpreters are used in a variety of crucial roles, ranging from an interview with a foreign driver involved in a road collision to interpreting documents used in major investigations of serious crime," a spokesman for Staffordshire police said.

The massive increase in spending is a direct result of a large number of people entering Britain, say police. Recent statistics show that around 342,000 people - among them Indians - moved to Britain each year.

West Midlands Police spent 1.7 million pounds on interpreters last year, compared to 439,638 pounds it spent five years ago - up more than 300 percent.

"It is important to stress that this is not just about criminal matters, but an active engagement with both new and established communities about any issues which may affect their quality of life", said a spokeswoman.

"Interpreter services are not cheap. Police need people who are professionally trained," he said. "But there are long-term implications here. Twenty years ago you could expect that someone coming to this country would learn English, but that assumption does not hold any more.

"Many people come here for a short term and have no interest in learning English. This means that police will probably need more interpreter services in the future." Danny Sriskandarajah, associate director of the Institute for Public Policy Research said.

"The provision of English-language teaching in Britain is abysmal. A lot of people want to learn English - they just don't have the means. If a few million pounds more is spent on English-language training, the government could save millions on interpreters in the long term," he added.