Legal compliance

Public sector organisations are required by law (the Equality Act 2010) to protect people from discrimination related to access to services, facilities, employment and education. More recent regulations came into force for public sector bodies on 23 September 2018, known as the ‘The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018’. This regulation implements the EU directive on the accessibility of the websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies into UK law. 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/accessibility-requirements-for-public-sector-websites-and-apps

  • They say you must make your website or mobile app more accessible by making it ‘perceivable, operable, understandable and robust’.
  • Your website or app must meet the new public sector requirement to be more accessible by complying with the international WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standard.

You’re legally responsible for your website meeting accessibility standards, even if you’ve outsourced your website to a supplier – and you need to publish an accessibility statement from those dates. Show you mean business about access – and reach your widest audience.

A screen-shot of a laptop screen taken over the test facilitator’s shoulder, who is writing a website’s accessibility statement
Two visually impaired visitors in a gallery testing the accessibility of an art gallery’s trails app

Steps towards legal compliance

I can help you do this, and have done this for dozens of public sector organisations, by breaking this down into steps, typically: 

  • Starting with an access audit – the first step towards legal compliance
  • Drafting an access test plan (referring to a test script and user journeys)
  • Reviewing your websites and apps to get a snapshot of how accessible they are now
  • Listing and prioritising my recommendations and main barriers to fix 
  • Drafting an accessibility to include on your site or app, a legal requirement
  • In line with the Government Digital Service (GDS) service standard – I strongly recommend also testing with a range of assistive technology and access users reflecting a wide demographic, e.g. range of ages, access needs, assistive technologies, location, digital experience and interests, across mobile, tablets and desktops (PC and Mac).

In helping clients to comply with the Access Regulations, I’ve found that there are three main levels of support needed: 

1. Initial access audit and accessibility statement 

  • As an expert access consultant I review 15 agreed pages and templates
  • Create prioritised list of access barriers and plan to fix
  • Draft access statement

2. Full access audit, user test and accessibility statement  

  • Access consultant reviews 20 agreed pages and templates
  • Carry out access user testing with 1-2 assistive technology users
  • Create report with recommendations
  • Include prioritised list of barriers and implementation plan
  • Draft access statement 
  • Provide report and statement discussion/phone support

3. Detailed access audit, testing, statement and support 

  • Access consultant reviews 25+ agreed pages and templates
  • Carry out access user testing with 3-4 assistive technology users
  • Create report with recommendations
  • Include prioritised list of barriers and implementation plan
  • Draft access statement 
  • Review organisation’s access strategy
  • Draft accessibility road-map integrating findings from audit and strategy to create a date-specific action plan for access for the whole organisation which might include:
  • Strategy for raising awareness of accessibility within the organisation
  • Training for staff to create accessible content 
  • Update of guidelines for external developers 
  • Provide report and statement meeting/presentation 
Skip to content