Explains to heads of United States, federal agencies, general counsels, and civil rights directors the steps agencies must take to comply with an August 2000 Presidential Executive Order aimed at improving access to services for persons with limited English proficiency (LEP). Issued by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to explicate its final policy guidance, it instructs federal agencies to publish guidance documents for the local agencies that implement their services and to create plans to ensure that LEP individuals have meaningful access to important benefits, services, information, and the rights provided by the federal agencies themselves. Moreover, the guidance documents that local agencies receive must be consistent from agency to agency, especially since many LEP individuals receive assistance from more than one federal agency. Thus, federal agencies are asked to follow a model document supplied by DOJ for the purpose of promoting interagency legal consistency. Agency heads and others are invited to participate in a DOJ interagency working group, whose priorities include creating a Web site on LEP issues, devising tools to facilitate understanding and application of guidance documents, and promoting interagency collaboration to fulfil the provisions of Executive Order 13166.
