Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Translation Services
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how much their Department has spent on translating documents into languages other than (a) English and (b) other native UK languages in each year since 2023; and what these languages were.
Answered by Catherine West
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) operates across 282 posts worldwide and has a wide range of translation and interpretation requirements across multiple foreign languages. While some translation services are specifically contracted, much of this work is likely to be part of larger programmes or ad hoc, making it very difficult to provide specific data in response to this question.
The FCDO does however procure essential translation services from FCDO Services. In the financial year 2024-25, the FCDO spend with FCDO Services on translations from English into languages other than Welsh was £133,000 (in 2023-24, it was £118,000). These translation services were used for approximately 30 different languages, predominantly for translations into Arabic, French, Spanish and the Afghan languages - Dari and Pashto.
In addition, the FCDO uses its own staff overseas or local suppliers to provide translation services when required. Machine translation, such as Google, and Artificial Intelligence are now also used.
Verbatim has judged this answer against the question that was actually asked — answered, partly answered, or evaded. Sign in to see the verdict →