Every council in England and Wales has a legal obligation to ensure its website is accessible to people with disabilities. Yet many town and parish councils remain unsure about exactly what the law requires, which standards apply, and what the consequences of non-compliance might be. Whether your council has recently launched a new website or has been running the same site for years, understanding your accessibility obligations is essential. This guide sets out everything your council needs to know about public sector accessibility regulations, the standards you must meet, and the practical steps you can take to become compliant.
What Are the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018?
The full title of the legislation is The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. These regulations came into force on 23 September 2018 and apply to all public sector bodies across the United Kingdom.
The regulations require public sector bodies to make their websites and mobile applications accessible by ensuring they meet recognised accessibility standards. In practice, this means your council website must be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for all users, including those who rely on assistive technologies such as screen readers, voice recognition software, or keyboard-only navigation.
The regulations implement the European Union’s Web Accessibility Directive (Directive 2016/2102) into UK law. Although the UK has since left the EU, these regulations remain in force as retained UK legislation and continue to apply in full.
Under the regulations, public sector bodies must:
- Meet the required accessibility standard (WCAG 2.1 AA as a minimum, with WCAG 2.2 AA now recommended as best practice)
- Publish an accessibility statement on their website
- Review and update their accessibility statement regularly
- Fix accessibility issues when they are identified
The regulations are monitored and enforced by the Government Digital Service (GDS) on behalf of the Minister for the Cabinet Office. Enforcement action is carried out through the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in England and Wales, and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland in Northern Ireland.
Do These Regulations Apply to Town and Parish Councils?
Yes. This is one of the most common misconceptions, and it is worth addressing clearly. The public sector bodies accessibility regulations 2018 apply to all public sector bodies, regardless of size. There is no exemption for smaller authorities. Town councils, parish councils, community councils, and neighbourhood councils are all covered.
Some clerks and councillors assume that these rules are intended only for larger authorities such as county councils, district councils, or unitary authorities. This is not the case. The regulations define a public sector body broadly, and local councils at every tier of government fall within scope.
The only exemptions in the regulations relate to specific types of content, such as pre-recorded audio and video published before 23 September 2020, or content on extranets and intranets published before 23 September 2019 (until those sites undergo a substantial revision). There is also a “disproportionate burden” provision, which allows a public sector body to claim that meeting certain accessibility requirements would impose a disproportionate burden on the organisation. However, this provision must not be used as a blanket exemption. It must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, properly documented in the accessibility statement, and the council must still take reasonable steps to make the content as accessible as possible.
In short, if your council has a website, these regulations apply to you.
What Standard Must Council Websites Meet?
The public sector bodies accessibility regulations 2018 require websites to meet the EN 301 549 accessibility standard, which in practice means conforming to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) at level AA.
When the regulations were first introduced, the required standard was WCAG 2.1 AA. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has since published WCAG 2.2, which became a W3C Recommendation in October 2023. WCAG 2.2 builds upon WCAG 2.1 by adding nine new success criteria designed to improve accessibility for users with cognitive and learning disabilities, users with low vision, and users of mobile devices. The Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO, formerly GDS) has indicated that public sector bodies should work towards meeting WCAG 2.2 AA, and it is widely expected that the formal requirement will be updated to reference WCAG 2.2 in due course.
WCAG is organised around four core principles. An accessible website must be:
- Perceivable — Information and user interface components must be presented in ways that users can perceive. This includes providing text alternatives for images, captions for videos, and ensuring sufficient colour contrast.
- Operable — User interface components and navigation must be operable by all users. This means the site must be fully usable with a keyboard alone, navigation must be consistent, and users must have enough time to read and interact with content.
- Understandable — Information and the operation of the user interface must be understandable. Text must be readable, forms must behave predictably, and error messages must help users correct mistakes.
- Robust — Content must be robust enough to be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies. This means using clean, valid HTML and following established coding standards.
Meeting WCAG 2.2 AA is not simply a matter of choosing the right colour scheme or adding alt text to images, though both of those things matter. It requires a website that has been designed and built with accessibility at its core, from the underlying code structure to the way content is written and published.
What About the Equality Act 2010?
The council website accessibility law does not begin and end with the 2018 regulations. The Equality Act 2010 has been in force for much longer and also imposes obligations that are directly relevant to website accessibility.
Under the Equality Act, disability is a protected characteristic. Service providers, including public sector bodies, have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that disabled people are not placed at a substantial disadvantage when accessing services. Since council websites are a primary channel through which councils provide information and services to residents, a website that is inaccessible to people with disabilities is likely to breach this duty.
The Equality Act applies regardless of the size of the council or the nature of the website. It covers all the ways in which a council communicates with the public, including digital channels.
The 2018 accessibility regulations build on the Equality Act by setting out a specific, measurable technical standard (WCAG) and introducing a monitoring and enforcement regime. The two pieces of legislation work together: the Equality Act provides the overarching legal framework for preventing disability discrimination, and the accessibility regulations provide the detailed requirements for websites and mobile applications.
This means that even if a council were somehow exempt from the 2018 regulations — which, as discussed above, town and parish councils are not — the Equality Act would still require the council to ensure its website is accessible.
What Is an Accessibility Statement and Do We Need One?
Yes, you need one. The public sector bodies accessibility regulations 2018 require every public sector body to publish an accessibility statement on its website. This is a mandatory requirement, not optional guidance.
Your accessibility statement must be published in an accessible format on your website, and it must be easy for users to find. Best practice is to link to it from the footer of every page on the site.
The accessibility statement must include:
- A description of the accessibility of your website, including any parts that are not accessible and the reasons why
- An explanation of any content that is exempt from the regulations, such as pre-recorded media published before the relevant deadline
- Details of any disproportionate burden claims the council is relying on, along with an explanation of the assessment carried out
- A feedback mechanism that allows users to report accessibility problems and request information in an accessible format
- Details of the enforcement procedure, directing users to the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) or the relevant equality body if they are not satisfied with the council’s response
- The date the statement was prepared and the date it was last reviewed
The Government Digital Service has published a sample accessibility statement template that councils can use as a starting point. Your statement should be reviewed and updated at least once a year, or whenever significant changes are made to the website.
An accessibility statement is not simply a legal formality. It demonstrates your council’s commitment to accessibility, provides transparency about known issues, and gives residents a clear route for raising concerns.
What Happens If Our Council Website Is Not Compliant?
The Government Digital Service (GDS), through the Central Digital and Data Office, is responsible for monitoring public sector website accessibility across the UK. GDS carries out both simplified and detailed monitoring of public sector websites, and it does include town and parish council websites in its monitoring programme.
If GDS identifies accessibility issues with your council’s website, it will contact the council to highlight the problems and ask for them to be resolved. Councils are expected to take action to fix the issues within a reasonable timeframe.
If a council fails to take appropriate action, the matter can be referred to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in England and Wales. The EHRC has the power to investigate and take enforcement action under the Equality Act 2010. This can include entering into binding agreements with organisations or, ultimately, taking legal proceedings.
Beyond the formal enforcement mechanism, there are other important reasons to take council accessibility legal requirements seriously:
- Excluding residents. An inaccessible website prevents people with disabilities from accessing council information and services. This includes agendas and minutes, planning information, contact details, and community news. These residents have the same right to access this information as anyone else.
- Reputational risk. Councils that fail to meet their accessibility obligations risk negative attention from local media, residents, and campaign groups. In an era when digital accessibility is an increasingly prominent public issue, being seen as non-compliant can undermine public trust.
- Failing your community. According to the Family Resources Survey, around one in five people in the UK have a disability. An inaccessible council website is not a niche issue — it affects a significant proportion of your residents.
Key Deadlines and Dates
The public sector bodies accessibility regulations 2018 set out a series of deadlines for compliance. While these deadlines have now passed, understanding them is helpful context for councils that may not yet be fully compliant.
- 23 September 2018 — The regulations came into force.
- 23 September 2019 — New websites published on or after this date were required to meet the accessibility standard.
- 23 September 2020 — All existing websites were required to meet the accessibility standard. This is the key deadline for most council websites.
- 23 June 2021 — Mobile applications were required to meet the accessibility standard.
If your council website was in place before September 2020, you have already passed the deadline for compliance. This does not mean it is too late to act, but it does mean that your council should treat compliance as an urgent priority rather than a future aspiration.
Accessibility compliance is also an ongoing obligation. It is not enough to make your website accessible once and then forget about it. Every time new content is published — a new agenda, a set of minutes, a news article, a planning document — that content must meet the accessibility standard. Staff who publish content to the website need to understand how to do so in an accessible way.
Practical Steps Your Council Can Take Now
If your council has not yet addressed website accessibility, or if you are unsure whether your current website meets the required standard, here are the key steps to take:
- Audit your current website. Carry out an accessibility audit to identify where your website currently falls short of WCAG 2.2 AA. This can involve automated testing tools, manual testing, and testing with assistive technologies. A professional audit will give you a clear picture of the issues that need to be addressed.
- Prioritise and fix the most critical issues. Not all accessibility issues have the same impact. Focus first on the problems that create the biggest barriers for users, such as missing alternative text on images, inaccessible navigation, poor colour contrast, and documents published in inaccessible formats.
- Publish an accessibility statement. If you do not already have an accessibility statement on your website, publish one as soon as possible. Be honest about any known issues and set out your plan for addressing them. Use the GDS template as a starting point.
- Train staff who publish content. Anyone who adds content to your council website needs to understand the basics of accessible content. This includes writing meaningful link text, adding alt text to images, using proper heading structures, and publishing documents in accessible formats rather than scanned PDFs.
- Review your documents. Council agendas, minutes, financial reports, and policies are often published as PDF files. Scanned image PDFs are completely inaccessible to screen reader users. Ensure all documents are published in accessible formats, and consider publishing key content directly as web pages rather than downloadable files.
- Plan for ongoing compliance. Accessibility is not a one-off project. Build accessibility into your regular website maintenance processes. Review your accessibility statement annually, test your website periodically, and ensure that new content meets the standard from the moment it is published.
- Consider whether your current website platform supports accessibility. Some website platforms and templates make it significantly easier to meet WCAG standards than others. If your current website has deep-rooted accessibility problems that cannot easily be fixed, it may be more cost-effective to move to a platform that has been built with accessibility in mind from the ground up.
How Zonkey Can Help Your Council
At Zonkey Council Websites, we specialise in building accessible WordPress websites specifically designed for town and parish councils. Every website we build is designed to meet WCAG 2.2 AA from the start, so your council can be confident it is meeting its legal obligations from day one.
If you are unsure whether your current council website meets the public sector bodies accessibility regulations 2018, we offer a free accessibility check to help you understand where you stand. We will review your website and provide you with a clear summary of any issues that need to be addressed. You can request your free check at our free accessibility check page.
If your council is ready to move to a fully accessible, professionally built website, we would be happy to discuss your requirements. Visit our request a quotation page to get in touch.
Making your council website accessible is not just a legal requirement — it is the right thing to do for every resident in your community.