7 - Disability issues in public procurement

Summary

Introduction

The Public Sector Directive 2004/18/EC for the first time takes explicit account of disability and environmental issues and includes provisions on accessibility and employment of disabled people. Some other social issues, for example race, have not fared so well, perhaps reflecting which groups were most effective at lobbying. The European Disability Forum (EDF) put a great deal of effort into lobbying.

This chapter explains how disability issues could be taken into account prior to the 2004 directive and examines the additional flexibility the 2004 directive provides. It also considers briefly what lessons may be learned from the United States' experience, both for EC policy and for Member States implementing national policies within the EC regime. This includes exploring the extent to which affirmative action through procurement – ‘contract compliance’ – can be pursued in the context of disability issues, in a way that goes beyond the needs of the particular disabled users of the item procured, and whether this is desirable. In this respect it is suggested that effort should focus on developing well-focused specifications rather than aggressively pursuing contract compliance. The chapter also considers whether any provisions in the 2004 directive require purchasers to pursue affirmative action.

The discussion proceeds as follows. First, to set the context, the chapter looks briefly at disability legislation in the EC (using the UK as an example of legislation common across the EC) and in the United States (section 2); and at the UK experience generally of contract compliance (section 3).