At Sitemorse we published our 2021 Q1 London-listed PLCs INDEX this week. The INDEX has been published quarterly since 2010 and ranks the websites of over 430 companies according to their digital compliance score and is based on a combination of online performance measures including adherence to accessibility standards, privacy regulation and level of content failure.

Our Q1 2021 INDEX was compiled following over 275 million tests checks and measures across over 845,000 URLs.

We’ve produced a short video about the INDEX results and how to view the key actions for each website:

Congratulations go to Marston’s for retaining first place. Also, congratulations are due to RHI Magnesita for being the most improved, rising a very impressive 296 places.

Those companies scoring highly provide confidence to investors and the public that they not only take their compliance responsibilities seriously but that they also have the systems and processes in place to adhere to the increasingly demanding regulatory environment.

Comparing results with last quarter, 39 companies improved their accessibility score from the last quarter, while 36 saw their score decline.

Marston’s was the only company passed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level A and AA tests on 100% of their web pages with 17 companies failing the level A and AA tests on every page. Indeed over 97% of web pages failed the level A tests and over 65% failed the level AA tests. More than 3,650 PDFs were accessed with only 11% passing all of the WCAG accessibility tests.

If we focus purely on Accessibility, Marston’s should again be congratulated for taking the lead in this sector scoring a perfect 10 (out of 10). Summarising accessibility scores we see that:

• Only 3 companies scored 7 or higher.
• 87% scored 4 or less.
• With 45% actually scoring zero

In the event of 2 organisations being tied then the organisation who scored higher in the previous quarter’s INDEX is ranked higher.

Making a website accessible comes under the Equalities Act 2000. We’ve already seen that in the US that lawsuits alleging web sites discriminating against people with disabilities are increasingly common and there is no reason that the UK won’t face the similar lawsuits.

The Top Ten London-listed PLCs’ Websites

1. Marston's PLC
2. Quilter PLC
3. Berkeley Group Holdings PLC
4. Pharos Energy PLC
5. Harworth Group PLC
6. Bank of Georgia
7. AEW UK REIT PLC
8. Ashmore Group PLC
9. British American Tobacco PLC
10. Aviva PLC

Five Most Improved

• RHI Magnesita
• Residential Secure Income PLC
• Senior PLC
• RELX Group PLC
• CLS Holdings

The full 2021 Q1 London-listed PLCs results can be found here: Sitemorse 2021 Q1 London-listed PLCs INDEX Results