A council has spent over £2million in taxpayer money to translate materials for people who do not speak English.
Figures uncovered by a Conservative councillor have revealed that Cardiff Council has used taxpayer money to pay a £2,047,975 bill to translate materials for people who cannot speak English.
The sums, disclosed in response to written questions tabled by Cllr Calum Davies, show that Cardiff Council over the last five years spent £1,145,525 of public money on pre-booked interpretation services.
An additional £506,034 was used for instant interpretation services.
Meanwhile, a further £396,416 went on translating documents between English and foreign languages.
Translating materials to Arabic incurred the highest cost at £314,446, far ahead of next placed Czech and Bengali on £125,631 and £96,289, respectively.
£72,932 was spent on translating documents to and from Arabic alone, while Czech and Bengali hoovered up a little over £41,000 each.
Materials translated on an annual basis are part of a budget consultation and an Ask Cardiff survey that evaluates citizens’ views on the council.
Cardiff Council have spent over £2million to translate materials for people who do not speak English
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GOOGLE MAPS
The council also has a webpage and animated video that is called “Tips on applying for a school in Arabic.”
Cllr Calum Davies said: “Cardiff and Britain are running out of money under Labour, so why are we frittering away millions on translation and interpretation, indulging a broken immigration system and failing integration policy when we have no obligation to do so?
“People expect public money to go on the frontline services that serve them before anyone else, so Cardiff residents will be at a loss to know why we are being told immigration is to our economic advantage when Council Tax is going up for wasteful spending like this.”
The average household in Cardiff is paying over £1,700 a year in Council Tax, meaning the total bill of all of the costs is equivalent to over 1,172 households’ full contribution of tax.
Cardiff Council has a webpage and an animated video called ‘Tips on applying for a school in Arabic’
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CARDIFF COUNCIL
Council Tax within Cardiff has also exceeded the rate of inflation since before the Covid-19 pandemic.
William Yarwood, Campaign director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, added: “Councils can’t afford to waste millions on translation costs.
“Ratepayers are facing record bills, yet councils continue to subsidise foreign families that don’t bother to learn the language.
“Local authorities must stop this soft-touch approach and expect residents to speak English.”
It comes as Cllr Calum Davies highlighted statistics showing that one-in-five social housing tenants in Cardiff were born abroad – most of whom are unemployed.
A Cardiff Council spokesman told GB News: “Cardiff is a proudly diverse, multicultural and multilingual city.
“Providing information in languages other than English and Welsh helps ensure residents can access essential council services, understand important information and participate in consultations on matters that affect them.
“The figures referenced represent cumulative expenditure over approximately four years, rather than a single year’s spending.
“Cardiff Council has the highest demand for language support of any local authority in Wales and during that period, language support services were provided to thousands of residents.
“During 2025/26 alone, 13,000 instances of support were provided across face-to-face, video and telephone interpreting, as well as written translation, covering more than 60 languages, including British Sign Language (BSL).”