At Sitemorse we published our 2021 Q3 London-listed PLCs INDEX this week. The INDEX has been published quarterly since 2010 and ranks the websites of over 420 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 Q3 2021 INDEX was compiled following over 290 million tests checks and measures across over 890,000 URLs.

Congratulations go to Marston’s for retaining first place. Also, congratulations are due to Mears Group PLC for being the most improved, rising a very impressive 217 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, 46 companies improved their accessibility score from the last quarter, while 38 saw their score decline.

This quarter’s results sees no company passing the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level A and AA tests on 100% of their web pages with 19 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 3,500 PDFs were accessed with only 11% passing all 28 of our WCAG accessibility tests.

If we focus purely on Accessibility, Marston’s should again be congratulated for continuing to lead the sector scoring a 8 (out of 10). Summarising accessibility scores we see that:

• Only 4 companies scored 7 or higher.
• 84% scored 4 or less.
• With 44% 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. Berkeley Group Holdings PLC
3. Quilter PLC
4. Harworth Group PLC
5. Ashmore Group PLC
6. Spirent Communications PLC
7. Anglo-Eastern Plantations PLC
8. Edinburgh Partners LTD
9. Pharos Energy PLC
10. AEW UK REIT PLC

Five Most Improved

• Mears Group PLC
• Primary Health Properties PLC
• Workspace Group PLC
• Go-Ahead Group PLC
• DFS Furniture PLC

The full 2021 Q3 London-listed PLCs results can be found here: Sitemorse 2021 Q3 London-listed PLCs INDEX Results