Agencies must purchase E&IT, the market is not doing a great job of supplying compliant products and solutions, and so often agencies must purchase inaccessible products. The job does not end there though. An agency is still charged with implementing that E&IT in the most accessible manner give its ‘other than procurement’ obligations (develop, use, maintain). It is also still under Section 504 obligations. Agencies must improve their capabilities in developing, configuring, and implementing accessible solutions after they purchase E&IT irrespective of any "out of the box" Section 508 limitations. Metrics that promote accessible implementation post procurement are needed (contract acceptance criteria, project planning, life cycle management, accessibility governance, and accommodation planning).
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for Idea: More Emphasis on Agency Implementation and Less on Procurement
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The idea was posted1 year ago
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I agree with your idea of follow-up. How about "provisional procurement"? The agency will purchase the less-than-fully-accessible product, but the vendor must commit to a remediation plan and provide complete guidance in the interim for all workarounds.
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There is a role for “provisional acceptance”, but “provisional procurement” is probably in a “too hard” or “do you have the guts” pile. Setting something like this up at the time of award is more difficult, and because the agency must be willing to call a bluff to be effective, the agency will have to weigh the cost of exiting the agreement. The costs may far out way the accessibility benefits they would get from a competing vendor (especially one that, if you conducted the procurement correctly, would be with a lesser vendor/product). It sounds like a good idea, but it would make for a complicated practice. We cannot even get all the agencies to include simple Section 508 acceptance criteria language into their procurements. Can you imagine trying to instruct them on how to structure a “provisional procurement clause?”
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