On the 23 September 2019, all UK Public Sector Bodies needed to publish accessibility statements for all new websites which must now meet WCAG 2.1 level AA conformance.

Public Sector Bodies are legally responsible for their website meeting accessibility requirements, even if they have outsourced their website to a supplier. More than that they have a social and moral responsibility to make sure that everyone can access their content. More information about the new regulations can be found from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sample-accessible-document-policy.

It is important to note that levels A and AA tests must be met independently.

Sitemorse have published a state of the nation report that assesses the progress that UK & IE universities and higher education establishments are making to ensure that their websites are accessible. 

Each quarter Sitemorse assesses the main websites of nearly 350 UK & IE Universities and Higher Education Establishments for adherence to WCAG 2.1.

Two universities, University of Derby and Herriot Watt University, achieved a score of 7 or greater (out of 10) for accessibility.

The target score for accessibility is 7.7 out of 10, which all bar one establishment failed to achieve.

• Pages passing accessibility level A: 59.5% 
• Pages passing accessibility level AA: 1.3% 
• Of the 3,091 PDF’s 58.8% PDF’s passed accessibility  

The INDEX covers the main website of each establishment however, the law applies to all websites operated, directly or on behalf of the establishment. 

To help improve compliance levels to the EU directive, we have launched a new three-month service for UK & IE universities and higher education establishments. The service allows a university or higher education establishment to assess and benchmark all of its sites for compliance to the WCAG 2.1 guidelines for website accessibility.

The service uses the Sitemorse Intelligence Engine™ (SMIE) to processes results, based on what is going to offer the greatest improvement and reduction in risk. Prioritised actions are delivered weekly by email through role-based lists for page owners, developers, and site/section managers. The universities and higher education establishments can rerun their sites at any time, during the three months so they can see improvements. 

Sitemorse are offering a 15% discount on the new service; to existing clients. 

The UK and IE universities and higher education establishments can order the service by contacting Adam Turner at Sitemorse: aturner@Sitemorse.com

The state of the nation report can be downloaded or obtained by contacting Adam Turner at Sitemorse: aturner@Sitemorse.com

Notes to Editors: 

European Union Directive 2016/2102/EU, creating a set of standards for EU public sector bodies, using European standard EN 301 549 V1.1.2 (2015-04) was approved on October 26, 2016. It came into force for in the UK on 23 September 2018. The aim of the regulations is to ensure public sector websites and mobile apps can be used by as many people as possible.

The Directive lists three dates for compliance to be achieved:

• 22 September 2019
  • New public sector websites (those published after 22 September 2018)
• 22 September 2020
  • All other public sector websites
• 22 June 2021
  • Public sector mobile apps

About Sitemorse Sitemorse.com

Sitemorse is a UK-registered company and is 100% privately owned, with no external investors. The only shareholders are staff. There is no bank borrowing, overdraft or external funding. Although UK based, we have clients around the world.

We built, and own, the software and are not answerable to any venture capital firm or similar, in terms of the operation and management of the company. The founders of the business remain part and parcel of the running of the company, today – and it is probably the first company to bring automation to the digital governance market (with our first services running nearly 15 years ago and our oldest current client joining us 13 years ago).

Sitemorse owns its own Intellectual Property (IP), has no reliance on third-party licensed products or services, and all development and investment costs are fully paid. Against the Sitemorse Service Level Agreement, the company has achieved 99.82% uptime against a target of 99.7% over the last 10 years.

Sitemorse provides content QA & digital governance software, along with being the first to introduce Data Science and Machine intelligence capabilities.