Awarded to Shaw Trust Accessibility Services

Start date: Wednesday 18 September 2019
Value: £8,703
Company size: large

West Berkshire Council

Accessibility Directive Audit

7 Incomplete applications

6 SME, 1 large

7 Completed applications

6 SME, 1 large

• Published: Wednesday 13 February 2019
• Deadline for asking questions: Wednesday 20 February 2019 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Wednesday 27 February 2019 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: Audit our 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 18 March 2019
• Location: No specific location, eg they can work remotely
• Organisation the work is for: West Berkshire Council
• Budget range: The maximum value of this contract will be £9,750.

About the work

• Why the work is being done: The EU Accessibility Directive comes into force on 23 September 2019 and requires public sector organisations to ensure their websites are accessible, and to publish an accessibility statement.
• 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 stand alone 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 online.

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:
  • Evidence and experience of delivering accessibility audits, preferably of government services
  • Evidence and experience of understanding of WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines
  • Evidence and experience of understanding the Equality Act 2010 in relation to websites
  • Evidence and experience of understanding the EU Accessibility Directive
  • 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
  • Evidence and experience of assessing websites for usability through assistive technology and software
  • Evidence and experience of providing designers and developers with guidance relating to accessibility
• Nice-to-have skills and experience: Involvement in the wider accessibility community - for example through publishing blog posts, running training and contributing to standards

How suppliers will be evaluated

• 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
• Payment approach: Fixed price
• Assessment methods:
  • Written proposal
  • Work history
  • Reference
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  50%

  Cultural fit

  5%

  Price

  45%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. Please can you advise whether testing with users who have disabilities is in scope of this piece of work? Or is this project purely to assess compliance against WCAG 2.1?: We would like all our digital estate assessed against WCAG 2.1 with the option to test a limited subset of it with users who have disabilities against.; ; Experience of the latter should be demonstrated as part of you application and should be detailed (including cost) if requested to submit a written proposal.
• 2. Can you provide examples of the service or pages you would like to be assessed?: For pages under these domains we will only require a report against WCAG 2.1 AA; ; https://publicaccess.westberks.gov.uk; https://www.civicaepay.co.uk/WestBerkshireEstore/estore/default/Catalog/Index; https://ats-westberkshire.jobsgopublic.com; https://westberks.spydus.co.uk; http://ww2.westberks.gov.uk; http://decisionmaking.westberks.gov.uk; https://ems.westberks.gov.uk; http://consult.westberks.gov.uk/portal; http://parish.westberks.gov.uk; http://jobs.westberks.gov.uk; https://www.homechoicewb.org.uk; https://www.westberkshireheritage.org/; https://booking.westberks.gov.uk/heritage_events.html; https://booking.westberks.gov.uk/all_events.html; ; For pages under these domains we would also like the option of more detailed accessibility testing, budget permitting:; ; https://www.westberks.gov.uk; https://citizen.westberks.gov.uk (home page directs to www.westberks.gov.uk); https://info.westberks.gov.uk (home page directs to www.westberks.gov.uk); https://directory.westberks.gov.uk
• 3. Would the supplier need to take care of the recruitment of participants?: This would depend on the type of test, but as a general rule we would recruit the participants.
• 4. Since you have an extremely large website, and since to audit all or even most of the pages would be prohibitively expensive, do you expect the chosen auditor to audit just a very small subset of the pages, chosen to cover a range of the components and layouts that exist on the website?: The content management system for many of our sites utilises a number of different templates to render content. It should therefore be possible to audit a handful of pages per template in order to report whether all of them conform to many elements of WCAG 2.1 AA.
• 5. The ‘participants’ mentioned in question 3, please can you confirm who you are referring to, eg. people with disabilities?: Question 3 was was raised by a supplier. We took "participants" to mean people who have one or more disability, who would partake in user testing.
• 6. Does the maximum budget figure of £9,750 exclude VAT?: The budget figure excludes VAT and suppliers should quote excluding VAT.
• 7. Please can you confirm the total number of web pages to be tested against WCAG 2.1 AA contained in the domains you listed in your the first part of your answer to question 2? And the total number of web pages contained in the domains you listed in the second part of your answer where you've asked for the option of more detailed accessibility testing?: An estimate of the minimum number of pages for each site is below.; ; For pages under these domains we will only require a report against WCAG 2.1 AA; ; https://publicaccess.westberks.gov.uk; 15 pages; ; https://www.civicaepay.co.uk/WestBerkshireEstore/estore/default/Catalog/Index; 10 pages; ; https://ats-westberkshire.jobsgopublic.com; 5 pages; ; https://westberks.spydus.co.uk; 8 pages; ; http://ww2.westberks.gov.uk; 2 pages; ; http://decisionmaking.westberks.gov.uk; 15 pages; ; https://ems.westberks.gov.uk; 10 pages; ; http://consult.westberks.gov.uk/portal; 5 pages; ; http://parish.westberks.gov.uk; 5 pages; ; http://jobs.westberks.gov.uk; 5 pages; ; https://www.homechoicewb.org.uk; 5 pages; ; https://www.westberkshireheritage.org/; 10 pages; ; https://booking.westberks.gov.uk/heritage_events.html; 10 pages; ; https://booking.westberks.gov.uk/all_events.html; 10 pages; ; For pages under these domains we would also like the option of more detailed accessibility testing, budget permitting:; ; https://www.westberks.gov.uk; 8 pages; ; https://citizen.westberks.gov.uk; 6 pages; ; https://info.westberks.gov.uk; 15 pages; ; https://directory.westberks.gov.uk; 10 pages