The 23^rd September 2020 was the deadline for when all public sector organisations in the UK had to have an accessible website as a result of legislation based on the European Union Directive 2016/2102/EU. 

Teams in local authorities, universities, government departments and other bodies in the public sector have been working hard to achieve compliance since the EU Directive was passed back in October 2016 and came into force for the UK on 23 September 2018.

To recap the aim of the regulations is to ensure public sector websites and mobile apps can be used by as many people as possible.

This includes those with:

• impaired vision
• motor difficulties
• cognitive impairments or learning disabilities
• deafness or impaired hearing

New public sector websites have needed to be compliant since 22 September this year.  All other public sector websites needed to be compliant by 22 September 2020. Mobile Apps have until 23 June 2021. 

We have been publishing Sitemorse INDEXes since 2006. The 2020 Q3 INDEX results were based on assessments that were produced in July 2020 and presented a snapshot of where the organisations’ websites stood as the deadline was approaching:

• In the UK & IE Universities INDEX we saw that 98% of websites scored less than 7 out of 10 for accessibility and 97% of webpages failed the Level A tests. See the full results at https://sitemorse.com/index/uk-ie-universities/2020-q3
• In the UK Local Government INDEX we saw that 77% of websites scored less than 7 out of 10 for accessibility and 83% of webpages failed the Level A tests. See the full results at https://sitemorse.com/index/uk-local-government/2020-q3
• In the Government and Public Bodies INDEX we saw that 96% of websites scored less than 7 out of 10 for accessibility and 96% of webpages failed the Level A tests. See the full results at https://sitemorse.com/index/government-and-public-bodies/2020-q3

 The 2020 Q4 assessments will be carried out in October and the results published in November. This will be the first opportunity to see which organisations’ have compliant websites. The dates for publication are:

• Q4 2020 UK & IE INDEX results on 3 November 2020.
• Q4 2020 UK Local Government INDEX results on 10 November 2020.
• Q4 2020 Government and Public Bodies INDEX results on 17 November 2020.

Of course the work doesn’t stop there: Why keeping on top of accessibility must now be the priority for compliant websites