SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS OF THE “BUILD FOR ALL, PUBLIC PROCUREMENT FOR AN ACCESSIBLE EUROPE” SEMINAR
The first Build for All Seminar done in Spain took place at the Design for All Foundation the last 9th of November, organized by the company ProaSolutions . Build for All is a UE supported work team, it’s goal has been to develop a manual to facilitate the application of Design for All in governments and city hall’s public procurement procedures.
Specifically, Build for All’s mission is to develop the European Commission policies to promote accessibility criteria in services and public works, according to the EU, 2004/17/EC and 2004/18/EC directives.
This seminar’s objective was to present this new perspective to those responsible for the public procurement procedure at the Spanish Administration, as well as to the companies involved in public bidding, in order to guarantee that products and services hired by the administration are useful for everyone, including elder people, foreigners and people with a disability.
Basically, we must emphasize the following actions to improve social inclusion that can be carried out by the administration or by the company.
By the administration:
-Define in the specification sheet ALL the accessibility and Design for All requirements.
-If I don’t know them, I can ask some other administrations and/or organizations for advice.
www.ceapat.org
www.cermi.es
www.designforall.org
-Hire Special Workshops directly instead of inviting tenders.
-Use experience in accessibility and Design for All as a criterion to include or select a company.
-Point the skills (experience and team) of companies regarding accessibility and Design for All.
-Demand external audit or certification of accessibility and Design for All for all the products and services I’ve hired. And also demand, on the contractor, all the proper arrangements to be done, if necessary.
By the company:
-Improve the know-how and the skills of my company towards accessibility and Design for All.
-If I don’t meet the requirement of having at least 2% of disabled employees, I must hire the services of a Special Workshop or donate to foundations that work for the social and professional integration of disabled people.
-Count on external advise, and if so, certifications of accessibility and Design for All of their products and services.
-Suggest my customers from the public administrations to include accessibility and Design for All criteria in their calls for tenders, directly or through the corporate associations they belong to.
As a conclusion after the Seminar, Peter Neumann, NeumannConsult’s director, mentioned the following:
Legal perspective:
-There are practical bases to develop accessibility in the Spanish public administration.
-These are not enough themselves. We must gather and spread the good practices.
-In Spain, it’s not compulsory yet to follow the rules on accessibility.
-Design for All is considered important and beneficial for both big and small sized companies.
-Taking part in public bidding without following the Law for the social integration of disabled people is more difficult. This is an important measure.
Recommended strategy:
-It’s very important to work cooperating in national or international nets, where companies from different sectors or sizes can participate.
-The training in public procurement procedures is extremely important. It would be interesting to star this training at Universities.
-It’s also important to disclose this information among professionals on active service.
Peter Neumann launched the following question: “After this Seminar, what would be the steps to follow?”
Francesc Aragall, as a member of the Design for All Foundation, contributed with the following suggestions:
-The Foundation will offer the toolkit and the Build for All seminar materials in their website.
-An interesting initiative to make the public servant’s job easier would be developing a “cookbook” with measures to be taken in different public works.
-Organize specific seminars adapted to different professional profiles, to every corporate sector and to the different areas of public administration.
To conclude the Seminar, Aragall mentioned “it’s worth starting this action plan, not only because of solidarity but also selfishness, because one day or another we will suffer from disability in the old age”.
