Specialist Task Force 416:
European Accessibility Requirements for Public Procurement of Products and Services in the ICT Domain(EC Standardization Mandate M 376, Phase 2)

Who we are:

Team Leader: Mike Pluke
Rapporteur: Walter Mellors
Team Members: Shadi Abou-Zahra
Sean Hayes
John S Lee
Jean-Yves Monfort
Dave Sawdon
Kiran Kaja
Bruno von Niman
Ioannis Yallouros
Erik Zetterströ
Dr. Loïc Martínez-Normand
José Angel Martinez Usero

Latest news and 2nd Open Workshop

The deliverables described in 'What we do' will be made available for comment and approval using the standard ETSI mechanisms and procedures.

In addition, there will be a site run by the Joint Working Group (JWG) of CEN, CENELEC and ETSI (described in 'Why we do it') where latest drafts of both the ETSI and CEN deliverables will be available for public comment (by all parties with an interest in Mandate M 376). ETSI Members are invited to make comments via this public site as well as via the formal ETSI approval procedures.

CEN, CENELEC and ETSI are organising a 2nd open workshop on 'European Accessibility requirements in public procurement of ICT products and services' to be held in Brussels on 28 October 2011. This is the second of a series of three workshops that give stakeholders an opportunity to learn about the work, to discuss the latest drafts of the standards and reports and to give feedback about the work being done. The workshop programme will be available early in September.

What we do

ETSI's contribution to European Commission (EC) Mandate M 376  is being carried out within the ETSI Human Factors Technical Committee, by STF416.

The STF will produce:

a standard, EN 301 549: Human Factors (HF); European accessibility requirements for public procurement of ICT products and services, that specifies ICT accessibility requirements and testing methods in a form that is suitable for use in public procurement; a technical report, TR 101 550: Human Factors; Documents relevant to European accessibility requirements for public procurement of products and services, that lists the documents used in the creation of the EN on ICT accessibility requirements and provide a source reference for any other documents needed to implement the specified test procedures; a technical report, TR 101 551: Human Factors; Guidelines on accessibility award criteria for ICT products and services, that gives guidance to procurers on the award criteria relevant to each area of user needs in the procurement of ICT products and services.

Download the  Terms of Reference for this work.

Why we do it

In its European Disability Strategy, the European Commission has developed a ten-year strategy for people with disabilities so that they can take part in all aspects of daily life across the EU. This strategy is in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which recognizes the basic rights of disabled and older persons and the need to remove any barriers that 'may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others'. Many European countries have already signed up to the (UNCRPD), expressing their intention to deliver what the convention describes.

One important step in achieving these objectives is to harmonise and facilitate the public procurement of accessible information and communication technologies (ICT) products and services within Europe. European Commission (EC) Mandate M 376 requires the three European standards organisations CEN, CENELEC and ETSI to provide the standards and guidance material to enable such a policy to be achieved. They will identify a set of functional accessibility requirements for public procurement, and then develop an on-line toolkit through which public procurers can access these requirements in a structured way as part of the normal procurement process.

In 2008, Phase 1 of the work produced two reports, ETSI TR 102 612 'Human Factors; European accessibility requirements for public procurement of products and services in the ICT domain' , and CEN BTWG 185 & CENELEC BTWG 101-5 Report 'Conformity assessment systems and schemes for accessibility requirements. These are used as the foundation of Phase 2.

In January 2011 Mandate M 376 Phase 2 started. This phase of the work, co-funded by the European Commission (EC), is managed by a Joint Working Group (JWG) of CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, with AENOR as the Secretariat. The JWG is supported by two teams of experts: an ETSI 'Specialist Task Force' and a CEN/CENELEC 'Project Team'. Together, these expert teams will develop a European Standard (EN), an on-line toolkit and four supporting technical reports, all of which will assist public procurement bodies when acquiring ICT products and services.

In order to tackle this issue, standardization work during Phase 2 of M/376 will have an objective to provide a set of functional accessibility requirements. The outcome of this work will be a new European Standard (EN) that will include the functional accessibility requirements applicable to all ICT products and services, intended to be used for conformity assessment in procurement processes, as well as the development of an electronic toolkit enabling procurers to make use of those harmonized requirements in a procurement process.

Although the intended field of application of the results of the mandate is public procurement, the results could be useful (as guidelines and recommendations) for other purposes, such as ICT procurement in the private sector.

When things happen