Language Access: Selected Agencies Can Improve Services to Limited English Proficient Persons
Released: 2010-04-26T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, state, local, or regional entities that receive federal funding to provide programs and services may not discriminate based on race, color, or national origin. Executive Order 13166 extends the language access requirements of Title VI to federal agencies that provide programs and services themselves and specifically addresses persons who, as a result of their national origin, are LEP persons. While the Executive Order does not prescribe specific approaches to language access services, it does require federal agencies to prepare plans (referred to as LEP plans) outlining the steps they will take to ensure that eligible LEP persons can access their programs and activities. According to DOJ, these LEP plans are important because they outline the steps agencies will take to ensure that eligible LEP persons can access federal programs and activities.

Federal agencies that provide financial assistance to state, local, or regional programs and services are also required to develop guidance (referred to as recipient guidance) that clarifies the funding recipients’ obligations under Title VI. Rather than express uniform rules of compliance, DOJ’s guidance incorporates “reasonableness” as its guiding principle by suggesting agencies assess their programs, services, or activities using four factors: (1) the number or proportion of LEP persons eligible to be served or likely to be encountered by the program or recipient; (2) the frequency with which LEP persons come in contact with the program; (3) the nature and importance to people’s lives of the program, activity, or service provided by the recipient; and (4) the resources available to the recipient and the costs of language access services. By instructing agencies to use this four-factor analysis, DOJ’s guidance intends to create a balance between ensuring meaningful access to critical services for LEP persons and not imposing undue burdens on federal agencies or the small businesses, local governments, or nonprofits that may be receiving federal assistance.

The Executive Order required agencies to develop and implement their LEP plans by December 11, 2000. Agencies were required to send copies of their LEP plans to the Coordination and Review Section (COR) of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which is responsible for serving as a central repository for agencies’ plans. Additionally, COR is responsible for providing technical assistance to federal agencies in developing LEP plans and recipient guidance. Agencies’ recipient guidance was to be submitted to DOJ for review and approval by December 11, 2000. Following DOJ’s approval, each agency was required to publish its recipient guidance in the Federal Register for public comment. Agencies also placed their recipient guidance on LEP.gov, a Web site created by the Federal Interagency Working Group on LEP formed by DOJ in 2002 to share information on efforts to implement the Executive Order. COR maintains the Web site.

While Many Agencies Have Completed Guidance and Plans, the Extent of Compliance across the Executive Branch Cannot Be Determined

As of December 1, 2009, 22 federal departments and independent agencies, including 13 of the 16 executive-level departments, had posted completed guidance for funding recipients on LEP.gov. Of these cabinet-level departments, recipient guidance for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Defense, and Department of Agriculture are listed as “pending.” Table 1 lists the agencies that have posted their recipient guidance.

The number of federal agencies that still must complete recipient guidance or LEP plans could not be determined. The Executive Order does not assign DOJ the responsibility for ensuring agencies complete recipient guidance or LEP plans. Rather, under the Executive Order, executive branch agencies are responsible for determining the need to develop recipient guidance based on whether they provide financial assistance to entities that provide federal services to LEP populations. Likewise, agencies are responsible for determining if they must draft LEP plans by assessing whether they have frequent or significant contact with LEP persons. If an agency determines that it is not required to draft recipient guidance, an LEP plan, or both, the agency is not required to report that determination to DOJ. DOJ has, however, provided technical assistance in many of these determinations and issued numerous reminders to agencies regarding their responsibilities under the Executive Order. For example, on November 12, 2002, the Civil Rights Division issued a memorandum to heads of federal agencies, general counsels, and civil rights directors. Section II of that memorandum asks that each federal agency draft or update LEP plans and urged each agency to place a copy of that plan on its Web site and provide COR with the link so that it could be placed on LEP.gov. Other DOJ letters, speeches, and memoranda have encouraged agencies to publish recipient guidance and to issue or update LEP plans.

Although the Executive Order requires agencies’ recipient guidance to be placed in the Federal Register for public comment, there is no similar requirement that agencies make their LEP plans publicly available. Rather, DOJ officials stated that, while it has encouraged agencies to post LEP plans and provide links to those plans on LEP.gov, agencies are given the discretion to make their LEP plans public. Of the 58 agencies that had submitted LEP plans to DOJ as of December 2009, 17 agencies have posted their LEP plans on LEP.gov, these are listed in table 2.

Our prior work has noted that high-performing organizations focus on the needs of their external stakeholders. Additionally, on December 8, 2009, OMB issued a memo directing agency heads to promote transparency and accountability by providing the public timely access to information on the activities of federal agencies. As such, publicly available LEP plans could help ensure that federal agencies appropriately focus on the needs of LEP communities by enhancing the transparency of agencies’ efforts and allowing for stakeholder scrutiny. Stakeholder review of LEP plans is especially important given the consequences that may occur if LEP communities do not have the appropriate level of access to federal programs and activities.

Of our three selected agencies, only IRS has posted its completed recipient guidance. FEMA and SBA have their recipient guidance listed as “pending.” In regard to LEP plans, only IRS has issued an LEP plan, while FEMA and SBA have not.

IRS, FEMA, and SBA Are Implementing the Executive Order to Varying Extents

The elements of an effective LEP plan, which involve agency commitment, a comprehensive needs assessment, systematic provision of services, and ongoing monitoring are included in DOJ’s guidance. We used these elements as criteria to assess the selected agencies’ progress in implementing aspects of the Executive Order. As shown in figure 1, IRS has addressed all the elements of an effective LEP Plan while FEMA has addressed half the elements, and SBA has met one element.

Opportunities Exist for Additional Collaboration and Leveraging Resources

Collaboration among agencies to improve LEP access through planning and providing language access services is ongoing, but could be enhanced. Our prior work has found that by collaborating on crosscutting issues, federal agencies are able to deliver results more efficiently than when acting alone. As part of that effort, we have identified practices that agencies can employ to improve their collaboration. Of these practices, we found the following four practices applicable to agencies’ efforts to improve language access services: Define and articulate a common outcome through identifying a compelling rationale for agencies to collaborate; Establish mutually reinforcing or joint strategies by aligning agencies’ activities, core processes, and resources to accomplish the common outcome; Agree on roles and responsibilities, including how the collaborative effort will be led, clarifying who will do what, organizing their joint and individual efforts, and facilitating decision making; and Identify and address needs by leveraging each others’ resources, thus obtaining additional benefits that would not be available if agencies were working separately.

Our work found that these collaboration practices are employed by the Federal Interagency Working Group on LEP, a network of federal agencies established in 2002 by DOJ to help foster governmentwide collaboration for serving LEP communities. The working group’s invitation list includes 46 different federal agencies. DOJ estimates that approximately 24 federal agencies participate actively. The group includes the three selected agencies, several cabinet level departments, such as the Department of Health and Human Services, and several smaller agencies, such as the National Labor Relations Board. The group’s mission is to build awareness of the needs and methods for ensuring that LEP persons have meaningful access to federal and federally funded programs and activities.

The working group meets approximately twice a year to discuss topics such as language access services in emergency preparedness, promising practices in a variety of contexts, enforcement, and other cross-cutting language access issues. The working group also consists of committees that meet on a more frequent basis to work on various implementation issues. The working group’s Federally Conducted Committee, for example, developed a guide of suggested practices for implementing language access services based on a survey it administered to federal agencies. In addition, the working group convenes larger conferences covering a broader range of issues, such as stakeholder partnerships, dealing with limited budgetary resources, and leveraging technology. COR coordinates these meetings, committees, and conferences.

The working group and its committees have sought to improve access for LEP populations by promoting collaboration among federal agencies and state and local government entities. These efforts include sharing information through the production and distribution of informational brochures and videos as well as surveying federal agencies about their initiatives to improve access for LEP persons. Additionally, the working group has sought to increase understanding and dissemination of language data from the U.S. Census Bureau and to strengthen enforcement efforts. According to DOJ officials, the working group reports that their efforts have improved inter-agency understanding of LEP issues, and in some cases, have helped to keep the implementation of the Executive Order and language access services a priority within agencies.

The working group’s Web site, www.LEP.gov, which is maintained by COR, shares the information it has collected and the practices it has developed. The Web site includes information on Executive Order 13166, a list of links to agency recipient guidance, as well as some of the published LEP plans that agencies have sent to DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. Agencies are able to share and learn from the information available on the LEP Web site and the site can be used as a resource by other agencies or organizations when creating their own LEP plans and recipient guidance. Moreover, the Web site posts best practices, planning and technical assistance tools, other tools and samples, and links to resources on topics such as interpretation, translation, and civil rights. For example, the general planning and technical assistance tools include information on how to access census data, a selection of census data on LEP populations by state, and an introduction to choosing language service providers, among other information. These efforts to share information have assisted agencies in addressing the executive order and in providing meaningful access to LEP populations. The Federally Conducted Committee has considered building upon these efforts by exploring the possibility of sharing resources among agencies, which is not currently done by the members of the working group. According to an official from the working group, the committee has discussed the possible benefits of creating an entity that would allow federal agencies to share translation and interpretation services as well as services for training translators and interpreters.

In addition to these efforts to share information, the working group has begun exploring how agencies might share resources to improve access to federal programs and services by LEP persons. Our prior work has examined how federal agencies have shared resources for various support services, such as human resource management, financial management, and other administrative services. A shared services approach enables agencies to leverage their resources by allowing multiple agencies to use the same service provider to meet a common need rather than each agency individually identifying and managing those services. Moreover, we have also found that this approach holds promise for enhancing the economy and efficiency of federal operations in an environment of increasingly constrained federal resources.

Selected Agencies Have Collaborated on LEP Access During Disaster Recovery

Efforts at the Disaster Recovery Centers (DRC) demonstrate the four applicable collaboration practices. The National Response Framework, developed by the Department of Homeland Security, directs FEMA to coordinate disaster recovery activities, including IRS and SBA disaster assistance programs. FEMA partners with IRS’s Office of Disaster Assistance and Emergency Relief and SBA’s Office of Disaster Assistance, among others, to operate DRCs, which are readily accessible facilities or mobile offices during the recovery from a disaster where applicants may obtain information about disaster assistance programs. FEMA shares information on affected LEP communities with IRS and SBA, and the agencies share oral and written language access services for LEP persons. For example, an IRS official stated that while at a DRC, FEMA personnel assess the English-language ability of taxpayers seeking assistance and are responsible for providing interpreter services as needed.

FEMA and SBA staff have collaborated on providing language access services at the DRCs in Austin, Texas for Hurricanes Ike and Gustav as well as in Bismarck, North Dakota for the Midwest floods. For example, according to a senior SBA official, during Hurricane Ike and Gustov, SBA worked very closely with officials from FEMA’s Individual Assistance and Public Assistance programs to prepare the preliminary damage assessment when the disasters first occurred. In addition, in Bismarck, North Dakota, FEMA and SBA provided interpretation and translation services in multiple languages to LEP disaster victims that applied for federal assistance. Collaboration among the selected agencies facilitated LEP persons applying for federal aid after the disasters.

Shared Services Approach May Enable Agencies to Leverage Foreign Language Capabilities

The approaches used by DOJ and the selected agencies are two examples of how agencies can leverage resources to provide LEP persons access to programs and services. A third example is the use of a shared services approach, which is used to leverage foreign language capabilities among the federal intelligence community. The National Virtual Translation Center (NVTC), created by statute and housed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, makes translation services available to 15 federal intelligence agencies on an as needed basis. Intelligence agencies requiring linguists in critical foreign language skills, such as Arabic or Somali, may use NVTC’s services through reimbursable agreements or military payment arrangements. NVTC uses independent contractor linguists with security clearances to provide these translation services. To reduce costs, these contractors work from locations across the country, either from their homes or nearby government offices. Documents needing translation are distributed to the contractors via secure channels. Rather than each agency expanding its own workforce to include additional translators with critical foreign language capabilities, this collaborative effort enables the intelligence community to share these capabilities more efficiently while meeting the demands of their missions. Although the NVTC illustrates a possible shared services approach for providing translation services among domestic agencies, this approach may be limited due to the technical nature of some of the documents needing translation, such as IRS’s tax forms and instructions. Despite this potential limitation, the shared services approach still provides domestic agencies an example for translating basic information on agency programs and services more efficiently.

Conclusions

Governmentwide, 22 federal departments and agencies have completed their recipient guidance for their funding recipients, which are used to clarify the funding recipients’ obligations under Title VI. Regarding the Executive Order’s requirement that agencies prepare LEP plans, DOJ officials reported receiving LEP plans from 58 federal agencies, with 17 of these plans listed on LEP.gov, as of December 2009. Because the Executive Order makes agencies responsible for determining their need to complete recipient guidance and an LEP plan, we could not determine which agencies still needed to complete either the recipient guidance or the LEP plan; if an agency decides it is not required to complete a recipient guidance or LEP plan, they do not need to report this decision to DOJ.

Moving forward, it will be important for DOJ to continue to encourage federal agencies to complete and submit their recipient guidance to DOJ for review and approval as mandated by the Executive Order. Furthermore, although not required by the Executive Order, publicly available LEP plans could provide LEP communities and other stakeholders the opportunity to review agencies’ strategies for improving access to federal programs and activities by LEP persons. By increasing the transparency of these LEP plans, agencies could obtain additional feedback from stakeholders on potential improvements to their efforts for serving LEP persons.

Aside from the preparation of their LEP plans and recipient guidance, we identified other opportunities to improve how the three selected agencies implement the Executive Order. For example, assessing the needs of LEP persons is integral to understanding the demand for services, and can be effective when needs assessment incorporates diverse strategies. Both IRS and FEMA conduct needs assessments that profile LEP persons at a national and local level. In regard to SBA, because it does not conduct a systematic needs assessment, the agency cannot determine if offices and funding recipients are fully meeting the needs of LEP persons.

Unlike IRS, FEMA has not developed criteria for determining which of its documents are vital. Translating vital documents would ensure that LEP persons can have meaningful access to federal programs and services. Implementing a policy for classifying documents considered vital might include criteria for translating documents, including regularly assessing the language needs of the populations frequently encountered or potentially affected by the program or activity. Additionally, the policy could include a process for ensuring that the FEMA office responsible for managing language access services has complete and accurate information about the agency’s efforts to translate documents classified as vital.

With respect to monitoring their efforts, while TAS collects limited information on its service provisions, it could take additional steps to collect more comprehensive and verifiable data to identify opportunities to improve service delivery. By collecting and using more comprehensive data as part of the existing data collection efforts, TAS will be better positioned to ensure that the local taxpayer advocate offices are not missing LEP populations in their jurisdictions or inadequately addressing the needs of existing LEP populations. TAS may want to assess whether it would be beneficial to collect this data from its funding recipients to identify potential improvements to the services provided to LEP persons. The limited information that FEMA collects from internal and external stakeholders after completing disaster response and recovery activities is not systematic enough to substantively improve current activities. SBA does not monitor or evaluate its services to LEP populations. With more systematic monitoring, FEMA and SBA would be able to determine whether LEP persons were able to access programs and services and whether those services met their needs or identify any potential improvements to those services.

Collaboration among federal agencies participating in the Federal Interagency Working Group on LEP provides an opportunity to enhance collaborative efforts across the selected agencies and governmentwide. Building on its past and current efforts, DOJ could encourage the Federal Interagency Working Group on LEP to share additional practices and resources for use across federal agencies, such as exploring a shared services approach for leveraging translation and interpretation services.

Recommendations for Executive Action

We are making nine recommendations to the Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Administrators of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration.

Department of Justice

To help ensure access to federal programs and services for LEP populations, as well as to promote greater transparency for LEP stakeholders, we recommend that the Attorney General direct the appropriate DOJ officials to issue a letter to the heads of all federal agencies reminding them of their obligations under the Executive Order. Specifically, the letter’s content should encourage federal agencies to: Complete and submit their LEP plans and recipient guidance to DOJ for review and approval, and Make their completed LEP plans available to the public.

Additionally, in cases when an agency has determined that it is not required to draft recipient guidance or an LEP plan, the Assistant Attorney General should request agencies to report the results of this determination to DOJ.

To promote more efficient improvements to LEP persons’ access across the government, we also recommend that the Attorney General direct the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights to work with members of the Federal Interagency Working Group on LEP to explore possible sharing of resources and foreign language capabilities. For example, members of the working group may consider leveraging their shared resources to produce routine and frequently used documents needing to be translated in less common foreign languages.

Internal Revenue Service, Taxpayer Advocate Service

To improve service to LEP populations, we recommend that the National Taxpayer Advocate determine whether any potential service improvements could be derived from requiring Low Income Tax Clinics to collect more detailed data on LEP populations they serve.

Department of Homeland Security

To comply with the Executive Order and provide recipient guidance for DHS’s components such as FEMA to follow when assessing the need to provide language access services for their programs, services, and activities, we recommend that the Secretary of Homeland Security finalize and issue the department’s LEP plan and recipient guidance.

Federal Emergency Management Agency

To provide more meaningful access for LEP communities, we recommend that the Administrator of FEMA take the following actions: Develop criteria for determining vital documents needed for translation, and make available general disaster information in the regularly encountered languages.

Develop mechanisms to monitor and evaluate services provided to LEP persons.

Small Business Administration

To provide more meaningful access to LEP populations, we recommend that the Administrator take the following actions: Finalize and issue its LEP plan and recipient guidance.

Complete a comprehensive national needs assessment which should include data from its existing funding recipients on the number of LEP persons served and how they are served.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a copy of the draft report to the Secretaries of the Department of Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice; the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service; and the Administrator of the Small Business Administration for their review and comment. We received written comments on the draft report from DHS, IRS, and SBA, which are summarized below and reprinted in Appendices II, III, and IV. DOJ provided written technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. DOJ, DHS, IRS, and SBA concurred with all our recommendations.

Specifically, the DOJ Civil Rights Division concurred with our recommendations that DOJ issue a letter to all heads of all federal agencies reminding them of their obligation under the Executive Order and work with members of the Federal Interagency Working Group on LEP to explore the possibility of sharing resources. DOJ Civil Rights Division stated that this report would help to further federal initiatives to ensure meaningful access to federally conducted and assisted activities for persons with limited English proficiency and would take steps to address the recommendation.

DHS agreed with our recommendation that DHS finalize and issue its recipient guidance and LEP plan and stated that it is taking steps to finalize and publish its recipient guidance in the Federal Register for comment. Furthermore, the DHS stated that its Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has assumed responsibility for completing the agency’s LEP plan and will collaborate with FEMA to develop criteria for determining what documents should be translated and the mechanism to be used for monitoring and evaluating services to LEP populations.

Although the IRS/Taxpayer Advocate Service agreed with our recommendation that the Taxpayer Advocate Service determine whether any potential service improvements could be derived from requiring Low Income Taxpayer Clinics collect more detail data on LEP populations they serve, the IRS/Taxpayer Advocate Service stated that the Low Income Taxpayer Clinics lack resources to collect detailed data on the LEP populations that they serve.

SBA agrees with our recommendations to finalize and issue its recipient guidance and LEP plan and conduct a national needs assessment. SBA stated that it is initiating actions to implement the recommendations and provide more meaningful access to SBA’s LEP populations.

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretaries of the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice, the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, Administrators of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration and other interested parties. This report will also be available at no charge on GAO’s Web site at http://www.gao.gov. If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-9110 or goldenkoffr@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report.

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

To review agencies’ progress in improving access to federal programs and services and how specific federal agencies were meeting the Executive Order’s requirements, we (1) determined which executive branch agencies have completed their recipient guidance and Limited English Proficiency (LEP) plans; (2) assessed the extent to which Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Small Business Administration (SBA) have implemented the Executive Order consistent with Department of Justice’s (DOJ) guidance, and (3) reviewed DOJ’s and the selected agencies’ efforts to enhance collaboration to improve access to federal programs and services for LEP populations, as well as other potential collaboration opportunities.

To determine which executive branch agencies have completed recipient guidance and LEP plans, we identified which agencies and departments had posted completed recipient guidance on LEP.gov as of December 1, 2009. We also reviewed the requirements of the Executive Order and DOJ’s guidance and interviewed DOJ officials regarding the technical advice they provided to federal agencies on preparing recipient guidance and LEP plans. We assessed whether the selected agencies implemented four elements discussed in the DOJ guidance, specifically (1) agency commitment, (2) needs assessment, (3) service delivery, and (4) monitoring. These elements were assessed as to whether they were implemented, partially implemented, or not implemented. For example, an agency would be assessed as having implemented the “agency commitment” element if it had completed its recipient guidance and/or LEP plan and had incorporated services to LEP populations into its agency mission, strategic plans, processes, and resource allocation. Additionally, if its recipient guidance and/or LEP plan had not been formalized and/or it had not integrated its language access efforts into all aspects of its plans, processes, or resources, the agency would be assessed as having partially implemented the agency commitment element. An agency would be assessed as not implementing this element if it had taken no actions or minimal actions to address the element.

To assess how specific federal agencies have implemented the Executive Order, this review, we considered federal agencies based on the amount and significance of agency interaction with LEP populations, the types of services provided, agency size, agency mission, the status of each agency’s LEP plan and/or recipient guidance, and the diversity of LEP populations served. To avoid duplication, we also coordinated our selection of agencies with work being conducted by other GAO teams in this area. Based on these criteria, we selected the IRS, FEMA, and SBA, as agencies that would provide a broad perspective on how a diverse group of agencies are addressing the Executive Order.

To review the extent to which these three agencies implemented Executive Order 13166 consistent with DOJ’s guidance, we reviewed and analyzed the Executive Order, DOJ’s guidance, the agencies’ LEP plans and recipient guidance, and agencies’ language access plans. The information contained in these documents explained the agencies’ strategies for providing access to their programs and services. To better understand the agencywide language access policies and standard operating procedures for providing language assistance services to LEP populations, we also interviewed headquarters officials to obtain an understanding of the process used to develop recipient guidance and LEP plans for agencies and their components.

To determine how the selected agencies provide services to LEP populations, we interviewed senior officials at the three agencies’ headquarters who were responsible for implementation of LEP plans and recipient guidance, such as civil rights officers, disaster assistance staff, and individuals responsible for providing language access services. We also conducted field visits at agency locations described below to observe the agencies’ language assistance services and to obtain views of agency officials who interact directly with LEP persons. In consultation with senior agency officials responsible for language assistance services, we chose our field site visits based on opportunity to see direct service being provided to LEP persons.

To examine how IRS provides direct service to LEP populations, we visited IRS Call Centers, Taxpayer Assistance Centers, Low Income Tax Clinics and Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Centers in Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Los Angeles, California. We also visited Taxpayer Advocate Service locations in Atlanta and New Orleans. We interviewed staff in the Los Angeles local taxpayer advocate service office on the phone.

To examine how FEMA serves LEP populations in disasters, how that process has changed, and what lessons could be applied to future disasters, we included past and current disasters in different phases of recovery. We visited the Louisiana Transitional Recovery Office in New Orleans, Louisiana (for information regarding Hurricane Katrina in 2005); and Joint Field Offices in Austin, Texas (for information regarding Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008); and Bismarck, North Dakota (for information regarding the North Dakota floods of 2009).

To examine how SBA provides access to its programs and services for LEP populations, we visited Women’s Business Centers and Small Business Development Centers in Atlanta, Georgia, and New Orleans. We spoke to Pacific Asian Consortium Employment (PACE) in Los Angeles, California on the phone. In addition, we visited SBA’s Office of Disaster Assistance, which is co-located with FEMA’s joint field offices in Austin and Bismarck.

To assess ongoing collaborative efforts to support and improve agencies’ language access services, we reviewed selected agency documentation of these efforts and compared the efforts with GAO-identified practices that help sustain and enhance collaboration. In short, GAO’s practices that enhance and sustain collaboration are: define and articulate common outcomes; establish mutually reinforcing or joint strategies; identify and address needs by leveraging resources; agree on roles and responsibilities; establish compatible policies, procedures, and other means to operate across agency boundaries; develop mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and report on results; reinforce agency accountability for collaborative efforts; and reinforce individual accountability for collaborative efforts.

For the purpose of this review, we focused on the practices that were most applicable to federal agencies seeking to collaborate on providing language access services to LEP persons and communities. As such, we selected the following four of the eight collaboration practices as criteria for this review: Define and articulate a common outcome through identifying a compelling rationale for agencies to collaborate; Establish mutually reinforcing or joint strategies by aligning agencies’ activities, core processes, and resources to accomplish the common outcome; Agree on roles and responsibilities, including how the collaborative effort will be led, clarifying who will do what, organizing their joint and individual efforts, and facilitating decision making; and Identify and address needs by leveraging each others’ resources, thus obtaining additional benefits that would not be available if agencies were working separately.

Additionally, we interviewed officials who convene interagency language groups and officials from the selected agencies that participate in those efforts, specifically senior officials of the Federal Interagency Working Group. During interviews with officials from DOJ’s Coordination and Review Section, we sought suggestions for other federal entities involved with acquiring and maintaining foreign language capabilities. DOJ officials suggested that we interview the Director of the National Virtual Translation Center to gain an understanding of how the intelligence agencies collaborate and leverage foreign language capabilities for a common goal.

Appendix II: Comments from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Appendix III: Comments from the U.S. Small Business Administration

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

Steven Lozano and Kisha Clark managed this engagement. Scott Doubleday, Robin Ghertner, and Pamela Harris made key contributions to all aspects of the report. In addition, Virginia Chanley provided design methodology support, Andrea Levine provided legal support, and Melanie Papasian and Robert Gebhart provided communications support.

Related GAO Products

Department of State: Comprehensive Plan Needed to Address Persistent Foreign Language Shortfalls. GAO-09-955. Washington, D.C.: September 17, 2009.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services: CMS Should Develop an Agencywide Policy for Translating Medicare Documents into Languages Other Than English. GAO-09-752R. Washington, D.C.: July 30, 2009.

English Language Learning: Diverse Federal and State Efforts to Support Adult English Language Learning Could Benefit from More Coordination. GAO-09-575. Washington, D.C.: July 29, 2009.

Military Training: DOD Needs a Strategic Plan and Better Inventory and Requirements Data to Guide Development of Language Skills and Regional Proficiency. GAO-09-568. Washington, D.C.: June 19, 2009.

Medicare: Callers Can Access 1-800-MEDICARE Services, but Responsibility within CMS for Limited English Proficiency Plan Unclear. GAO-09-104. Washington, D.C.: December 29, 2008.

Child Care and Early Childhood Education: More Information Sharing and Program Review by HHS Could Enhance Access for Families with Limited English Proficiency. GAO-06-807. Washington, D.C.: August 17, 2006.

Transportation Services: Better Dissemination and Oversight of DOT’s Guidance Could Lead to Improved Access for Limited English Proficient Population. GAO-06-52. Washington, D.C.: November 6, 2005.