WRITTEN ON March 18th, 2006 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Government Procurement

Ruth Loebl from RNIB writes in on the question of government procurement:

Perhaps I’m taking this into a different realm, but I am extremely
interested in govt procurement at the moment, due to the introduction of
a new Public Sector Duty to promote disability equality (a new bit of
the existing Disability Discrimination Act), enforceable in December
2006. The Code of Practice for this Disability Equality Duty (DED)
http://www.drc-gb.org/thelaw/publicsectordutycodes.asp specifically
covers the DED in procurement, and there’s even an example (that *isn’t*
about a website for a change):

“A Government department that is planning to procure a new IT system
should ensure that its action plan includes the work it will do to
ensure that the new system is suitable for use by disabled employees.
The action plan should also indicate the way it will develop the
specification so that the system delivers the right products for
disabled customers. This might include having a means of identifying
those customers and their requirements, which could lead to being able
to, for example, print notifications and letters in accessible formats
for visually impaired people.”

This is an enormous advance, holding out the possibility that systems
may cease to exclude disabled people from employment as they do at the
moment. Awareness and knowledge within the public sector of how to
achieve what the law requires is currently very low, given that it’s
new, it’s quite complex, and up to now, a bit of a niche area. So I’ve
been trying to find out from the Disability Rights Commission and anyone
else who’ll stand still for long enough – is ‘government’ going to
coordinate compliance with the DED in procurement across all
departments, or is each central and local government agency going to
start from scratch and repeat all the errors others will have made,
without benefitting from good practice and experience gained elsewhere?

If coordination is to be a reality, then where in government will
responsibility reside? The Disability Rights Commission has many
priorities and procurement is not high on the list, despite the amount
of money involved, and they have no authority to implement, only to
advise. The DWP ‘owns’ the DDA, the Treasury ‘owns’ procurement via the
OGC, the DTI has an interest in eInclusion 2010 and there’s a brand new
Office for Disability Issues but I can’t get a clear idea of where their
priorities lie (and I expect they are only just working them out). RNIB
and other voluntary sector partners are ready and willing to advise and
support, and I would dearly love to know where to approach government to
have the greatest effect.

I could go on about the business case and show that procurement of
accessible IT helps govt save money and meet business and social
objectives, but we’ll take that as read at this point, except for a
single quote from my source within DWP:

“If accessibility for people using various kinds of access technology
had been considered while LMS was being designed, it would have saved a
great deal of expense and time. What’s more, an inclusively designed LMS
would have been more accessible to and usable by all staff, not just
those with disabilities.”

So, ‘wibbi’ I could get this little bit of legislation into the
processes and culture of government procurement effectively, without
stifling innovation or adding unduly to bureaucracy (I promise)? Any
advice and assistance would be welcome.