E-agendas delayed until 2018
Plans for council to go digital stalled after contract terminated
The region was forced to cancel a contract to provide electronic agendas for council meetings after it was found that Accela, the company that won the contract, was unable to make the system work in the way that conformed to provincial guidelines.
By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express
Regional plans to make council agendas more accessible will likely have to wait until 2018.
According to a report attached to the latest council information package, the region made the decision to terminate its contract with Accela after that company was unable to follow through on its commitments for the electronic agenda program.
One of the largest issues with Accela is that they were unable to make the system conform with provincial guidelines.
“The principle one was that the e-agenda would be fully accessible and compliant with the (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act), and the more we worked through it was Accela, they were just not meeting the acceptability requirements,” Matt Gaskell, the region’s commissioner of corporate services, tells The Oshawa Express of the program that was originally supposed to be completed by Jan. 1.
“There were a bunch of other less significant issues, but still of concern, but with the region rebuilding its website…this year, we have an obligation to be fully AODA compliant, and they just weren’t getting us there.”
Under the act, webpages and other online documents belonging to government entities must be accessible for those with disabilities, including the ability to resize text, audio description for pre-recorded video content and captioning for live video.
According to a regional report on the contract termination, Accela was not making the program fit under those guidelines, despite concerns raised by the region.
“Thoughout the project, the project team clearly communicated concerns regarding this issue to Accela without seeing a successful resolution,” the report reads.
“Ultimately, the project team concluded that Accela would not be able to meet this mandatory requirement despite the fact that their bid submission contained a signed declaration indicating that their solution would be fully AODA compliant.”
Gaskell says that the need for the e-agendas to be fully AODA compliant was especially pertinent because of a planned redevelopment of the region’s website, coming this fall, to make the page fully in line with legislation.
The contract with Accela was approved by council in late June and came with a one-time cost of $41,200 and maintenance costs totaling just under $200,000 from the second through fifth years of the deal.
At the time the contract was approved, some councillors expressed concern with The Oshawa Express that Accela, an American-based company, would have difficulties as it does not have as much experience with legal requirements north of the border.
Gaskell says these concerns proved to be true.
“I think they were proven correct, but hindsight is 20/20,” he says.
“This is a large e-agenda provider in the United States, but their experience in Canada is more limited, and that proved to be somewhat problematic for us.”
Going forward, Gaskell says that the region will have to tighten up its requirements and put the contract our for proposals once again later this year. This delay, however, means that e-agendas won’t be seen at the region until 2018.
“Realistically though, we’re probably a year behind schedule now. It’s probably next January, I would think,” Gaskell says.
Accela did not respond to The Oshawa Express’ request for comment prior to press time.