Time: 2011-05-11
Venue: CEN CENELEC Meeting Centre Brussels
Standards Norway representative: Rudolph Brynn
• Welcome and opening remarks. Ms Elena Santiago Cid, CEN/CENELEC Director General welcomed the attendants. Accessibility aspects are a core aspect of European standardisation. It is a central aspect of trade and production of goods and services but involvement of user interests is very important for successful results. Europe 2020 strategy refers to social inclusion: “Innovation Union”, Digital agenda for Europe and European platform to ensure social and territorial cohesion so that the benefits of growths and jobs are widely shared. The European Parliament has emphasized that standardisation has great potential to remove barriers that prevent disabled people to exercise their capabilities and participating on equal terms in all areas of life. The Member States are encouraged to strengthen the public procurement rules to promote inclusion of accessibility requirements. Mandate M376 is a core activity today together with the work on M420 and e.g. work on accessibility to medication like EN 15823 packaging – Braille on packaging for medicinal products. CEN CENELEC can provide guidance material to help companies in particular SMEs to participate to cross-border bidding and procurers to frame their calls for proposals. Standardisation support market access for innovative products and contains provisions for horizontal aspects like accessibility.
• Views on accessibility and public procurement – the European Commission perspective.
o Martina Sindelar EC DG Enterprise and Industry: they are responsible for the budget for the project of M376. They provide technical expertise and follow the issues in which they have political interests. Policy interests in M376 include: the market for accessible goods and services is growing and there is an increased interest in company policies and in government dialogue. Harmonization with US standardisation is also of interest for the EC. Dialogue with the US is to ensure a global market standardisation. Innovation is another important interest. Standardisation is closely related to this. The work on M376 started in 2005 so it has taken a long time but negotiations to implement the Mandate were complex as the issue was new.
o Mr François Junique EC DG Information Society: presented the background for the eAccessiblity policy, like the Digital Agenda for Europe. This initiative was to make sure that public sector websites are accessible, to include accessibility in all relevant legislation and to evaluate it in all revisions of legislation, to implement provisions in telecoms policy etc. Besides the mandates M376, M420 and M473 the UN Convention is also important for the EC policy. Research and innovation is involved through FP7, ICT for Ageing Well and Ambient Assisted Living AAL. Ongoing programs include FP6, FP7 and AAL. Projects include assistant technologies, pilot projects and thematic networks and an Assistive technologies portal (eAccess+). Competitiveness and Innovation Framework CIP 2007-2013 has an open call presently. There is an ongoing study on monitoring eAccessibility in Europe.
o Ms Immaculada Placencia Porrero EC DG Justice: Unit of the rights for persons with disabilities. Important developments since 2005 has included a Charter for fundamental rights requiring legislation to take the rights of disabled people into consideration and also to take the UN Convention which has been ratified by EU, into consideration in developing Directives etc. Accessibility should be included in standardisation initiatives. CEN CENELEC has responded to the EC Green Paper favorably to this issue. A Commission Working Paper has been published on how to include accessibility in public procurements, in subject matters in the contract how to make correct requirements to ensure that the most accessible goods and services are procured. November 2010 the European Disability Strategy was adopted, committing the whole Commission, not only DG Justice. It includes accessibility (cost-benefit analysis to be published end of 2012), including transport, transport infrastructure including ICT issues, and requirement of standards – to provide guidance to a) industry and b) service providers.
There will be 2 references to standards to ensure that these enterprises include accessibility in their products. An award has been introduced for accessible cities. The Structural Funds will also be revised – today there is a clause that projects must include accessibility aspects. However there is a need for guidance on this. A key document will be developed on this in the near future. Legislation and standardisation will be used by the EC besides consultation with the Member States and development of European standards. A cost-benefit analysis is also be developed as mentioned. The US model on accessibility will also be studied for examples of good practice etc.
• Panel for CEN CENELEC ETSI work: how can stakeholders be involved? CEN CENELEC ETSI joint working group and the public administrations. Ms Cristina Rodriguez-Porrero, CEAPAT Director and eAccessibility JWG vice-chair: Public procurement is important as an instrument for achieving accessibility. There is an obligation to buy accessible to comply with mandates, Directives, legislation and the UN Convention. There are many benefits from buying products designed for all, for business values, economy, sustainability, cost-efficiency and competitive markets. There is a need for a common set of accessibility requirements, standards, guidelines, award criteria and a tool-kit – for all public procurement processes. The Joint Working Group eAccessibility is working on M376 and has fulfilled Phase 1 producing reports while Phase 2 is beginning. This will include production of standards, a Technical Report, an on-line toolkit and a guidance document. Public administrations are responsible for public procurement processes and these must help to achieve goals of accessibility, stimulate economic activity and to support diversity of consumers. Besides purchasing power the public authorities also have accessibility power. Public procurement is an inspiration for the private sector and they can promote employment opportunities, decent work, social inclusion etc.
The possibilities offered by Directive 2004/18/EC should be used. It requires that technical specifications should take accessibility criteria into account. Information is needed to raise contracting authorities awareness of the benefits of accessibility and socially responsible public procurement, consumers’ satisfaction with use of accessible products and services and for manufacturers to see what standards apply. To participate it is important to stay in touch with this work through contacting the JWG, the national standardisation bodies and the public procurement bodies.
• How to create the optimal European accessibility standard for procurement processes and related support toolkit for public procurers. Mr. Mike Pluke, ETSI Specialist Task Force Leader & José Ángel Martinez Usero CEN project leader. The activity will produce technical requirement and test methods for eAccessibility, details of conformity assessment related to this etc. Public bodies will not have specialist knowledge related to accessibility. The toolkit is to support them. The core document will be a European Norm (EN) that provides a European-wide set of accessibility, and methods for verifying that requirements are being met. W3C WCAG 2.0 guidelines will be adopted for web accessibility, and alignment sought with international accessibility requirements, to the extent that differing market conditions permit. The requirements in the standard will be part of the technical specifications of calls for tenders across Europe. Guidance for claiming conformance with accessibility requirements will be provided. M376 will provide common set of accessibility requirements for use in technical specifications, an on-line toolkit and a template for conformance claims of accessibility, facilitating comparison of tenders.
Reports will be provided on guidelines on accessibility award criteria for ICT products and services and document relevant for accessibility requirements, as well as guidance and support material o procurement and accessibility policy. Timescale includes publication of EN 2013-09-30 and of the toolkit at the same time. Issues include: What procurement guidance documents are used and how? Specifying the context in which the product will be used could be important – how to increase involvement in public procurement?
Guidance is needed: Presentation of the draft toolkit. An animation was presented giving the outline of what will be the layout of the toolkit. Drafts available from: http://www.ictsb.org/Working_Groups/DATSCG/M376_JWG/m376.htm . To contribute to the work also contact the national procurement bodies and/or standardisation bodies (Norway: rbr@standard.no) .
Discussion of copying in the requirements of WCAG 2.0 into the EN: Probably this will be the AA level requirement as is currently being adopted in most European countries. Also to identify the procurement bodies on national level to get the right contacts.
• How can procurement community foster accessibility demands from consumers? Ms Chiara Giovannini, ANEC: ANEC is the European organisation representing consumer’s interests. The procurement market is important, with annual purchases of € 2 Trillion annually. Price should not be the only concern but also social and green considerations, including accessibility. Social considerations can be combined with green considerations in an integrated approach to sustainability in public procurement. M376 conformity declaration: accessibility award criteria; verification of supplier claims of accessibility; tracking of non-compliance of products and services and information of accessibility results are major concerns. A study was made by Middlesex University on compliant accessible websites, non- accessible websites etc. 100 websites claiming to be accessible were selected and all filtered through automatic testing. 25 passed automatic testing and these were manually tested. 5 countries were selected with 3rd party certification available. Also other non-national websites. In total 76 public and 25 private. Results: For WCAG 2.0 level A is mainly used but most follow WCAG 1.0 still. Overall level of accessibility on all websites is disappointingly low! Only 3 of 76 attested by third part were fully accessible, 0 of 24 self-declared accessible were accessible.
Recommendations: certification bodies and web developers should make a move towards WCAG 2.0 and drop WCAG 1.0. Certification bodies should ensure that the accessibility integrity of the approved websites is maintained also after certification. Website developers and owners should put in place a maintenance plan and retest to maintain accessibility. Conclusion: A declaration of conformity is the key for effective public procurement. There are problems of reliability of claims about web accessibility, and voluntary labels need market surveillance. There should be a link between web accessibility and national legislation in absence of EU provisions.
• Why are standards important for persons with disabilities? Mr. Rodolfo Cattani, European Disability Forum: EDF is composed of organisations of disabled people, representing some 50 million disabled people in Europe. Public procurement should be used to achieve accessibility in society and combat discrimination. The UN Convention entered into force in January this year and it contains a series of clauses affecting both public procurement and accessibility. The recent financial crisis has affected negatively disabled people and the situation can be worse. Thus opportunity should be taken to use the tool of public procurement to improve the situation through better opportunities to participate in society. Accessibility of websites is still very low and many other parts of society, strengthening social exclusion. Only legislation, underpinned by relevant standards can rectify this situation. Many articles of the UN Convention are relevant as a reference to necessary requirements. Standardisation is a very important instrument for all consumers: if accessibility is included it will result in equal access, to transport, ICT etc. They are a key factor for accessibility – cannot replace mandatory measures, but M376 is a milestone for accessibility and EDF will contribute to its success.
• Accessibility requirements in public procurement of ICT services and goods – lessons learnt in the USA. Ms Terry Weaver US General Service Administration Director: The USG procurement role includes an executive branch that includes both civilian and defence agencies. The Congress appropriates funds and agencies’ procurements are governed by the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). The FAR is used to implement policy. The FAR does not cover state or local entities. See https://www.acquisition.gov/far/current/pdf/FAR.pdf. The goal of the Section 508 legislation is to improve the accessibility of the US Government’s use of ICT and is enforced through acquisitions. Most every state has a similar law or policy. Section 508 is not about reasonable accommodation, does not provide assistive technology to an individual or physical access issues such as building egress, paper documents or transportation unless IT is involved. Section 508 is implemented in the FAR. Links: www.section508.gov and www.buyaccessible.gov are both to assist procurers and producers to assure proper requirements of accessibility. BuyAccessible.gov contains information to buyers and sellers to ensure consistency and proof of due diligence in the procurement process through guidance documents. Each Quick Link includes solicitation language and a Government Product/Service Accessibility Template(GPAT) customised for that product or service. An Accessibility Forum provides a space for discussing relevant issues for involved parts. The Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) is a tool used to document a product’s conformance with the accessibility standards under Section 508. Ongoing challenges are that agencies are still not complying with S508 – advocacy groups’ complaints are increasing; soon-to-be released academic paper will hit agency web sites hard; upcoming refresh of the Accessibility Standards will increase compliance burden and agencies will need BA; FedBizOpps sampling has shown an improvement over time but still the majority of RFPs are wrong. Contact: terry.weaver@gsa.gov; alex.koudry@gsa.gov; Helen.chamberlain@gsa.gov .
• Public procurement of accessible technologies – an industry perspective. Mr Peter Korn, Oracle: How industry develops accessible ICT for the global market, the impact of procurement standards and policies, the importance of uniform reporting of accessibility and harmonisation of accessibility standards. Digital Europe’s vision is to achieve accessible technology for all. Oracle is doing Section 508 work, and they are involved in accessibility standards like ISO, W3C (WCAG, PFWG), JTC1 SWG-A and OASIS. They are also involved in Government funded Accessibility R&D (AEGIS and ACCESSIBLE European FP7 projects) as well as advocacy and awareness. Accessibility is a development process – design, development, test – documentation and VPAT. It is enabled by standards. Most ICT applications are based on technology stacks, for instance JAVA SE, JSF, Fusion and Win32. Accessibility standards are aligned to procurement standards, tech stacks and applications implement accessibility standards. Then there are consensus standards like WCAG 2.0, and platform standards like Java. From standards to policy is an important issue!
A good standard is not only open but widely implemented by multiple vendors. Without being put to use by the majority of the market, a standard is quite meaningless. There is efficiency in having a single standard for each area of interoperability. Impact of procurement policies: Products are tracked and measured against requirements. How we report drives how we track. VPAT has been helpful. Issues on 3rd party certification includes accessibility achieved by multiple interdependent components work together, plus training and support- measuring a user’s success = measuring the entire “ecosystem”. Accessibility is best realised by technical interoperability. 3rd party certification is not warranted for situations where health and safety are not at risk. Uniform reporting of accessibility is important – procurement policies and requirements drive product development, also drive accessibility standards. When technology is neutral, policies enable industry to innovate, leading to significant accessibility improvements. Different requirements would hamper innovation and give rise to differing accessibility standards and increase costs. Thus they recommend to fuel the “ecosystem’s virtuous loop”, if this is efficient we can deliver accessible ICT globally more quickly and at the lowest possible cost. Also WCAG 2.0, Section 508 and Mandate 376 should be aligned. This would recognise that today’s ICT is global. Harmonisation will yield one set of accessibility standards applied globally to help everyone in the ecosystem, and lower costs. Contact: peter.korn@oracle.com.
• Working session: How can the procurement community support JWG? There was a general debate on issues including definition of accessibility and to what documents to relate, for instance on any given technology. WCAG 2.0 will give a good definition for the web, same goes for Java etc. These are technical not social definitions of accessibility. Section 508 has social functionality standards. There has been a debate whether one fulfils the social requirements when fulfilling the technical ones, but also some have claimed that they fulfilled the social requirements even if not fulfilling the technical ones. These cases have been discussed as exceptions. It is important that definitions of accessibility are used that are understandable for non-experts.
• Closing remarks