Procurement with Purpose: The BBC’s Award-Winning Accessibility Story

We are delighted to welcome Natalie Curran from the BBC to share the story behind their award-winning approach to accessible procurement, recognised at the Business Disability Forum’s Disability Smart Impact Awards 2026. The BBC was honoured for embedding accessibility into its procurement processes and contracts, ensuring inclusive design is built in from the outset and sustained across suppliers. They did this by including it through updates to its Terms of Trade, a formal accessibility gateway, and a training course rolled out to all 22,000 staff.

The results have been transformative, with disabled BBC staff experiencing fewer barriers and greater independence, while suppliers have begun changing their own product roadmaps and design decisions to meet BBC accessibility standards. Natalie will be sharing some of the key documents that underpinned this work, offering practical insights your organisation could apply to its own procurement practice.

Challenge, Collaborate, Change: Supplier Accessibility at Barclays

Jack Goodfellow, Digital Accessibility Analyst, will take us through Barclays’ evolving accessibility journey, with a particular focus on how the bank works with suppliers to improve accessibility outcomes. He’ll share the processes, challenges and real-world examples that help drive change, including cases where Barclays’ influence contributed to improvements that benefited the wider banking sector.

The session will explore how Barclays balances challenge and accountability with collaboration and support, helping suppliers understand issues, improve products, and ultimately deliver better experiences for disabled users. Along the way, Jack will share some of the approaches that have proven effective, from practical demonstrations and testing to governance, standards and risk-based decision making. He’ll finish by providing useful tools and resources, that everyone can use on their own accessibility journey.

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