UK Government report on accessibility compliance monitoring
James Baverstock | 15 Jan 2025In December 2024, the Government Digital Service (GDS) published its second report on the accessibility monitoring of public sector websites and mobile apps under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations (PSBAR), covering 2022-2024.
This follows the previous report published in 2021. A report will be published every three years going forward.
We've been keeping our public sector clients and higher and further education customers updated on the stipulations and monitoring practices of PSBAR since its announcement and subsequent enforcement, including running free webinars and training to help address digital accessibility needs.
Types of tests used to monitor compliance
The latest GDS report provides information on how the monitoring and testing process is conducted which will be useful for all public sector organisations to review.
The report contains top-level figures on websites and apps tested in the period, summarised under the three testing types used in the monitoring process:
- Simplified testing (which is used most frequently) covers a small sample of pages, using mainly automated testing.
- Detailed testing looks at a broader range of pages with a wider range of tests.
- Mobile app testing, which is similar to detailed testing, but is conducted across screens and flows of mobile apps.
Key aspects of the second GDS report on PSBAR
Particular points of the report to note include:
- The specific use of the automated testing tool axe from Deque Systems for automated testing. Automated testing can only cover a limited number of accessibility issues, but including it into your development and testing processes can still be very helpful.
- The description of the selection of core pages for simplified testing specifically mentions the home page and contact page, as well as forms, audio-visual content and PDFs. These are areas that it makes sense to prioritise in your accessibility efforts, as well as making sure that your most-used pages and all your page template types are accessible, which will help during the detailed audit process.
- The report also links to the monitoring team’s full accessibility testing guide if you want to reference this for your internal testing.
Most common issues identified
The report also contains some useful data on the most frequent issues found, which correlate well with common issues we see at AbilityNet when testing sites. These include:
- Issues with colour contrast between text and background (particularly noting that contrast issues are often overlooked where text is placed over images or pale placeholder text is used in form inputs).
- Lack of visible keyboard focus indication and common issues with colour contrast on keyboard focus or pointer hover.
- Problems using websites and mobile apps with a keyboard - with menus, carousels and sliders being particularly called out for commonly causing keyboard accessibility issues.
- Sites that don’t correctly reflow to adjust to different screen magnifications.
- Issues with form elements that do not have accessible names or are not programmatically associated with the visible label – particularly where one label is incorrectly used to cover multiple inputs.
- With mobile apps specifically, lack of support for both portrait and landscape mode, which is important for users who need to use a device in a fixed orientation.
PDF Accessibility issues
Notably the report also specifies that problems with PDF accessibility are very common.
It says that there is normally an issue found with PDFs that are tested – even though the PDF tests are limited to very simple technical checks, such as for the inclusion of a title and a language.
This highlights the need for public sector organisations to take document accessibility more seriously, as documents published since September 2018 on websites and intranets are covered by PSBAR.
Fixes identified and actioned
The report points out the success of the monitoring process overall in terms of getting a large number of accessibility issues fixed on public sector sites – giving a figure of 16,482 issues fixed as a direct result of monitoring.
However, it also raises concerns that the accessibility statements required by the regulations are not being kept up-to-date in many cases – citing the need for organisations to review these at least every 12 months so that they reflect the current accessibility of sites.
This is important to consider if you don’t currently have a regular review process in place for your accessibility statement, as just publishing a statement without regular updates is insufficient.
Train your teams to boost compliance
AbilityNet has a range of services that can assist with PSBAR compliance, including auditing and other testing services for websites, mobile apps and documents, training for accessibility testing and an accessibility statement service which can help with reviewing an existing statement or with drafting a statement for a new website or app.
Understand the basics of what you need to know about accessibility testing your digital spaces: Book now for our How to begin your own accessibility testing training course on Thursday 27 February 2025 (or book group training in-house for your team).
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James Baverstock is a Principal Accessibility Consultant at AbilityNet who specialises in document accessibility. He contributes to AbilityNet’s training programmes for Microsoft Office, PDF (Portable Document Format), and InDesign accessibility, as well as conducting accessibility audits for PDFs and Office documents. As a certified Accessible Document Specialist (ADS) from the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP), he is well-versed in the field.