3 Essential Steps for Building Accessibility into the Procurement Process

1. Create an accessibility committee with key stakeholders

If you don’t have an accessibility committee already, it’s time to set one up.
 
Your accessibility committee should include the proper stakeholders who will help make things happen around campus. You’ll want to include someone from procurement, as well as someone from your legal counsel.
 
There are several things an accessibility committee can help do. The accessibility committee can help develop a procurement process, then help to integrate it into the purchasing process. The accessibility committee can also be in charge of reviewing purchases before they are sent to the procurement committee.
 
The accessibility committee should also help train individuals. It’s important to ensure everyone involved in the procurement process is familiar with the common terminology. The best way to do this is by creating a website or portal that outlines how the organization approaches accessibility.

2. Work with the procurement department to incorporate accessibility into the policy

There are many places you can write your accessibility procurement policy. It can be written into your university-wide accessibility policy, it can be written into your procurement policy, or it can be written in both places.
 
Wherever you decide to write your policy, a good accessibility procurement policy should:

• State the organization’s commitment to include accessibility in the procurement process
• Set the basic provisions for acquiring new technology (like asking vendors for a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)).
• Determine where to best seek advice in relation to accessible procurement

If possible, get a support letter from the organization’s president, VP, provost, etc.

3. Create a purchasing review committee

A purchasing review committee is a necessary step in your procurement process that can help ensure all your technology, going forward, is accessible.
 
All technology should be reviewed by this committee before it is handed off to the procurement department.
 
The purchasing committee can help keep track of:

• Contracts: are they new contracts or renewals? If they are renewals, are they compliant?
• All purchases of X value
• Purchases that pass certain risk levels
• The testing proccess
• Reporting
• Vendor timelines and road maps
• Risk statements

When purchasing new technologies, it’s important to be strict with vendors. Vendors should provide clear answers, especially when they say they don’t meet certain criterea.

If a vendor cannot make their products accessible, you should work with them to create deadlines for them to meet the required criteria.

Always ensure you ask vendors to fill out VPATs, and follow up if the VPAT isn’t clear or specific.

Lastly, when it comes to testing, seek out the user. The best people who can give you feedback about a product are those who are going to be using the product.