European Accessibility Requirements for Public Procurement of Products and Services in the ICT Domain
(European Commission Standardization Mandate M 376, Phase 2)

News

2012-04-30 The expert teams of CEN and ETSI have released revised deliverables for a public commenting period which is open until 31st May 2012.

Background of the Work

European Commission (EC) Mandate M 376 (PDF document) requires the three European standards organisations CEN, CENELEC and ETSI to harmonise and facilitate the public procurement of accessible information and communication technologies (ICT) products and services within Europe. 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" (PDF document), and CEN BTWG 185 and CENELEC BTWG 101-5 Report "Conformity assessment systems and schemes for accessibility requirements" (PDF document). These are used as the foundation of Phase 2.

Current Work

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 two supporting technical reports, all of which will assist public procurement bodies when acquiring accessible ICT products and services.

Open Workshops

CEN, CENELEC and ETSI held two open workshops on "European Accessibility requirements in public procurement of ICT products and services" in Brussels on 11th May 2011 and 28th October 2011. These were the first and 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. Here are the documents of the first open workshop and the second open workshop.

Participate

The following stable drafts were released and announced on 30th April 2012 for information and comments, due by 31st May 2012. You are invited to comment using the form provided with each document in the download archives. Please note that the comment forms are different for each document, and should be send to the email address that is given on each form.

NOTE:
The deliverables D5 "Online Procurement Toolkit for accessible ICT products and services" and D6 "Additional guidance and support material for the procurement of accessible ICT products and services" are now being integrated in the Online Procurement Toolkit and the contents are being adapted for a web information product. Therefore, the online Toolkit will be released for comments at a later stage, according to the Time Plan established below.

The resolution of the comments form the first (August / September 2011) commenting phase can be found in the consolidated comment resolution documents for deliverables D1 (Word document), D2 (Word document) and D3 (Word document).

For general comment relating to the above, or to comment on other aspects of the work, please contact us at .

Tentative Time Plan

Date Key Milestone
February 2011 Start of work.
March 2011 Table of Contents and Scope for the standard (EN) and Technical Reports (D1, D2, D3 and D4) available.
11th May 2011 1st Joint Open Workshop (in Brussels) to involve the procurement community in the work.
June 2011 Draft of the standard (EN) and Technical Reports (D1, D2, D3 and D4) containing scope and table of contents released and announced.
10th August 2011 Initial drafts of the standard (EN) and Technical Reports (D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, and D6) available for comment, due by 12th September 2011.
August 2011 The call for tenders to develop the online toolkit (D5) is published.
28th October 2011 2nd Joint Open Workshop (in Brussels) to involve the procurement community in the work.
5th December 2011 Revised draft of the standard (EN) (D1) again available for comment, due by 31st December 2011.
30th April 2012 Stable drafts of D1, the standard (EN), and Technical Reports D2, D3, and D4 available for comment, due by 31st May 2012.
Under review 3rd Joint Open Workshop (in Brussels) to involve the procurement community in the work.
31st July 2012 Start of the final public commenting period on D1, the standard (EN), and Technical Reports D2, D3, and D4, which is open until mid September 2012 (TBC).
31st October 2012 Final drafts of D1, the standard (EN), and Technical Reports D2 and D3, submitted to the CEN / CENELEC / ETSI Joint Working Group (JWG) for approval. ETSI Secretariat (editHelp) processes Technical Reports D2 and D3 for publication and D1, the standard (EN), for Public Enquiry (PE).
31st December 2012 D1, the standard (EN), is submitted to the formal standards-making process for Public Enquiry. Technical Reports D2, D3 and D4 are published.
Under review The draft version of the toolkit (D5 and D6) is released.
31st May 2013 Comment resolution and National Standards Organisation (NSO) voting.
28th February 2014 D1, the standard (EN), is published.
Under review The final version of the toolkit (D5) is released.

How to Contact Us

You are welcome to send an email related to the work to: .

Related European Commission sites

Related Documents