Cabinet Office
Key findings
- 3% of the 436 online public service websites assessed achieve Level A conformance with the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 1.0) passing the full suite of both automated and manual checks.
- A further 10% of services fully passed all the automated checks, but showed a material failure on one or more of the manual checks – in this report referred to as a Limited Pass Level A.
- Another 17% of sites failed one or more of the automated checks, but this failure was limited in extent or scope – referred to as a Marginal Fail Level A.
- Finally, the remaining 70% of sites showed relatively pervasive failure against one or more of the automated checks – referred to as a Fail Level A.
- No site that achieved Level A conformance was found to achieve the higher standard of Level Double-A conformance.
- The policy survey identified ten potential factors that might influence web accessibility. These were combined into an index of engagement for cause and effect analysis between eAccessibility and policy approaches across the Member States. The results indicate that general levels of policy engagement in this area are linked to improved results. The single most significant influencing factor was found to be the existence of legal incentives.
- Eight out of 25 Member States reached Limited Pass Level A (or at least Marginal Fail Level A) in at least 40% of online public service websites. These states tend to have a higher than average index of engagement.
- No correlation was found between web accessibility and the level of sophistication of online government services as measured by the annual European Commission/ Cap Gemini e-government benchmarking exercise.
- The testing highlighted three examples of consistently good practice across all automated and manual checks (one from Spain, one from a European institution and one from the UK) and these are analysed in detail. Many other services, across other Member States, have been found demonstrating good practice in specific areas of the guidelines.
- Research into best practice outside the EU identifies three countries (Australia, Canada and Hong Kong) that are as advanced in eAccessibility of public services as the most advanced Member States of the EU
- An analysis of the common reasons for failure points demonstrably to an action plan for improvement that could lead in a short time to 30% achieving at least Level A conformance. Recommendations to achieve this step change in performance are presented.
