DoD has taken some steps to gain efficiencies in its approach to contracting for certain types of foreign language support services and products but should explore whether additional opportunities exist to gain efficiencies across a broader range of language contracting activity, GAO has said.
The Army acts as the executive agent managing contracting for foreign language support, and has focused its efforts solely on arranging for contracts to acquire translation and interpretation services for contingency operations.
The Army obligated over $5 billion for these contracts in 2008-2012 but according to GAO-13-251R, 159 contracting organizations in 10 different DoD components obligated about $1.2 billion on outside language contracts.
GAO called on DoD to assess its current approach for managing foreign language support contracts to include an analysis of spending for other types of foreign language support services and products that have been acquired by DoD components outside of the executive agent and a re-evaluation of the scope of the executive agent’s management efforts to determine if any adjustments are needed.