The Web Content Accesibility Guidelines are designed to ensure that website content is accessible to as wide a range of people as possible. As a public body, a town or parish council in the UK is required to adhere to WCAG. From October 2024 this means ensuring that websites are designed to meet the criteria in version 2.2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Version 2.2 introduces a few additional criteria, which build on version 2.1.
Gov.uk states:
“People may not have a choice when using a public sector website or mobile app, so it’s important they work for everyone. The people who need them the most are often the people who find them hardest to use.”
WCAG 2.2 is designed to help those who design, build and manage websites ensure they’re accessible. The guidelines describe how to ensure all areas of a website remain accessible to those who might be using screen readers, keyboard navigation or other accessibility tools. For most websites these concepts are simply good practice and will ensure a better experience for all users, whether they have a disability or not.
Your Responsibility as a Local Council
As a local government body you have a legal requirement to adhere to the accessibility guidelines. “Since 23 September 2018 all public sector websites and apps need to meet accessibility standards and publish an accessibility statement. You need to review and update your statement regularly.” (Gov.uk).
The Government Digital Service (GDS) examines a sample of local council websites each year. If they find websites, apps or intranets which do not mee the accessibility criteria the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) can enforce the requirement to make these websites more accessible. If organisations do respond in a satisfactory way this can lead to investigations, unlawful act notices and even court action.
Website Accessibility – Make It A Priority
Ensuring websites are accessible should be a priority for local councils. When obtaining quotes for new websites, you must ensure that the developer you choose to work with understands what is required. They will need to apply accessibility concepts to all areas of the website, from the underlying page structure, to the layout, styling and content.
It’s also vital that whoever is managing the content of your website understands how to add new information in a way which ensures the continued accessibility of the information. Your web developer should provide sufficient training to ensure those responsible for day to day up-keep understand how to do this.
How I Can Help
I’ve been building accessible websites for nearly 20 years. This includes building government websites for local councils such as Dunning Parish Council.
Dunnington Parish Council’s website was built in 2020. One of their councillors (David Swallow) is a website accessiblity expert, who I got to know during his time at University in York. David led the project for Dunnington Parish Council. At the time of the build the website adhered to WCAG 2.1, with a few exceptions which are detailed on their Accessibility Statement.
Current Website Accessibility Projects
I am currently working with two other parish councils to refresh their existing websites and bring them inline with WCAG 2.2. This work will be completed over the coming weeks and I will update this post with more details in due course.
Get in Touch
If you’d like to discuss working with me on developing an accessible, thoughtfully designed, easy to maintain and mobile-friendly website for your local government organisation please contact me.