Awarded to Invotra Consulting Limited

Start date: Monday 10 May 2021
Value: £11,600
Company size: SME

Wokingham Borough Council

Accessibility audit

17 Incomplete applications

16 SME, 1 large

41 Completed applications

35 SME, 6 large

• Published: Monday 1 February 2021
• Deadline for asking questions: Monday 8 February 2021 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Monday 15 February 2021 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: Audit Wokingham Borough Council public facing digital estate against WCAG 2.1 AA and produce a report detailing which sites and pages are not meeting this standard.
• Latest start date: Monday 15 March 2021
• Location: No specific location, for example they can work remotely
• Organisation the work is for: Wokingham Borough Council
• Budget range: £9,000 to £20,000

About the work

• Why the work is being done: Following the EU Accessibility Directive that came in to force on 23 September 2019 and requiring public sector organisations to ensure their websites are accessible and to publish an accessibility statement we want to improve our accessibility further.
• Problem to be solved: Although all our digital services and websites should be accessible according to the Equality Act 2010, we have never conducted a full audit of our public facing digital estate and therefore cannot reliably write an accessibility statement.; ; This work will enable us to correct any accessibly issues found, determine where corrections would constitute a “disproportionate burden”, and write an accessibility statement.
• Who the users are and what they need to do: This work will not deliver a service, however it will help us better meet the needs of people who access the council's information or services online.
• Existing team: This is a standalone piece of work.
• Current phase: Not applicable

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: This work can be completed remotely.
• Working arrangements: To reduce travel cost and time this work can be completed remotely. Once the work is underway, meetings can be conducted onlin.

Additional information

Skills and experience

Buyers will use the essential and nice-to-have skills and experience to help them evaluate suppliers’ technical competence.

• Essential skills and experience:
  • Have evidence and experience of delivering accessibility audits, preferably of government services
  • Have evidence and experience of understanding of WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines
  • Have evidence and experience of understanding the Equality Act 2010 in relation to websites
  • Have evidence and experience of understanding the EU Accessibility Directive
  • Have evidence and experience of testing with people who have a range of disabilities, including: blindness, low vision, colour blindness, dyslexia, limited limb mobility, learning disabilities or autistic spectrum disorder
  • Have evidence and experience of assessing websites for usability through assistive technology and software
  • Have evidence and experience of providing designers and developers with guidance relating to accessibility
• Nice-to-have skills and experience: Show involvement in the wider accessibility community - for example through publishing blog posts, running training and contributing to standards

How suppliers will be evaluated

All suppliers will be asked to provide a written proposal.

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 3
• Proposal criteria:
  • How the approach or solution meets our needs
  • Estimated timeframes for the work
  • Value for money
  • Team structure
• Cultural fit criteria: Work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers
• Payment approach: Fixed price
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  50%

  Cultural fit

  10%

  Price

  40%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. To get better scope clarity since it is a vast website, are there specific pages, templates and/or user journeys that need to be tested?: Yes. We'd be looking for testing of 15-20 specific templates in our CMS system, and 10 third party portals, each with 2-5 different templates. We would not expect every page to be tested exhaustively but we'd work on a plan with the chosen supplier of which templates / pages to test.
• 2. Are you looking at just an overall audit providing top-level issues site-wide or do you want a detailed audit identifying all the accessibility issues on pages tested?: We'd be looking for both, but the focus would be on testing selected pages and templates as agreed in detail and then using that to drive a summary of key, common issues across CMS site and for third party portals.
• 3. Hello, based on our estimates, including subdomains, there are around 94k pages on the site currently. A few questions...1) Based on the CMS you are using, how many individual page templates do you believe there to be? 2) We assume you’d like all subdomains included in the audit? 3) Do you require the sub-services, for example, residents parking included in the audit?: 1. There are 15-20 CMS individual page templates to test.; 2. Yes we would like subdomains included.; 3. Yes we'd like sub-services included in the audit; We'll work with the selected supplier to define exactly which subdomains and which sub-services. It is likely to be the majority but might not be all exhaustive.
• 4. Are you open to applications from suppliers who can’t provide evidence and experience of testing with people who have a range of disabilities, but have an accessibility capability that would illicit the same findings as if they did?: Yes we are open to application from suppliers with this capability.
• 5. Can we please confirm that for this stage of the tender, bidders are only required to answer the essential and nice-to-have questions. Are you then intending to take the top 3 scoring bidders through to a subsequent stage to provide a formal proposal and pricing?: Yes we intend to shortlist to 3 based on the essential and nice-to-have questions and then ask for a formal proposal to evaluate the 3 suppliers shortlisted.
• 6. Is testing with a person with disabilities is essential, or might merely using the relevant technology (screen readers) suffice to respond to the 5th of your essential questions?: Yes we are open to application from suppliers with the capability to test using the common software used by people with disabilities.
• 7. How many public facing services are in the scope for the audits?: We would estimate between 10 and 25 but this is something we'll want to define more fully with the preferred supplier. Instead of thinking about service areas we'd like to think more about testing templates and examples of interaction points (forms, etc) across our digital proposition. So we want to focusing on method / functionality / system of delivery rather than service area of delivery.
• 8. Would you be happy to accept an individual to carry out this audit?: Yes, we are focusing on ability to meet requirements.
• 9. Please can you provide the exact URL of the site in scope?: Hi, so the main URLs are:; ; https://www.wokingham.gov.uk/; ; https://wokinghamjobs.jgp.co.uk/; ; https://planning.wokingham.gov.uk/; ; https://booking.wokingham.gov.uk/; ; https://buspass.wokingham.gov.uk/views/home.faces; ; https://www.northgate-nes.co.uk/pls/pwslive/f?p=CARPWS:HOME:4859479742314:INITIALISE:NO:SESSION:APP_LA_CODE,APP_TEXT_LANGUAGE,APP_SRV_CODE,APP_ACCOUNT_TYPE:WOK,ENG,CAR,CT&cs=3dDVEho0uBcTnQEMyawcOPrtv7f94DeUsiUCOggdyJmD6lTGw4fKmKICWjb_rBrN81RQICxvFFH8TZKwixRbGhQ; ; https://wokinghamalliance.highway-iams.uk/Live/PBLC/PIP/?cg=POT; ; https://housingonline.wokingham.gov.uk/ords/houlive_selfserv/f?p=13000:101::::::; ; https://webpayments.wokingham.gov.uk/NReg/QuickPay.aspx; ; https://wokinghamboroughcouncil.magicbooking.co.uk/Identity/Account/Login; ; http://axlr8.wokinghamfoi.org.uk/disclosureLogYear.asp; ; https://fostering.wokingham.gov.uk/ ; ; https://www.dinton-pastures.co.uk/; ; https://childrenincarecouncil.wokingham.gov.uk/; ; https://www.sendiasswokingham.org.uk/login/; ; https://news.wokingham.gov.uk/; ; https://www.myjourneywokingham.com
• 10. Do we have to test only accessibility or we should focus also on other areas like security, analysis, UX, etc.?: We are focused on accessibility for this work.
• 11. “We would expect a delivery partner to work with us on this project for as long as necessary each week” – We want to know more about working hours or time period e.g. what are basic working hours, what is estimated time period in weeks or months?: In terms of working hours we are 9 to 5, week days, but we wouldn't expect immediate response but would want to work out a series of touchpoints to define and manage the work. We'd look for a workshop to kick off defining the exact and detailed scope and then regular check ins to answer any questions and blockers and get a report on progress. We'd expect the audit to take 4 to 6 weeks from start until final report and recommendations, but we would work with selected partner to plan realistic time-scales as part of early stages.
• 12. Will all of you documents (e.g. Word, PDF) be converted to html version (wordpress page)? Are these documents unique or do they have common components?: We are working towards HTMLing documents on our sites but due to the large volume on our sites we expect this work to be incremental. They are largely unique but we'd be interested at recommendations and options for different types of documents across our site (eg plans / application forms, etc).
• 13. Is your wordpress template a single page or multipage template?: The sites listed above in answer to question 9 don't use wordpress as their CMS. If you've found a site driven by WordPress let me know which one and I will look in to it.
• 14. While I understand that the final scope will be defined with the preferred supplier. For the purposes of equal criteria for the proposals, can we clarify the scope. From the answers to previous questions, it appears that the following is in scope:• The main CMS driven website with 15-20 page templates.• Plus 10 third party portals, each with 2-5 templates (so 20-50 templates)• Plus 10-25 servicesIs this correct?Or, do the services come under the 15-20 templates of the main site?If not – what is an approximate number of templates that make up the services?: Hi, the answer to question 9 gives you an idea of the different sites and portals. It will be good to focus on the templates in each of those sites and design that to take in a range of services. If needed it could then be good to select 2 to 3 different services to do some analysis from a pure online service point of view