What accessible content means

Accessibility is a part of several laws and standards we must follow. These laws consider people's needs when designing and delivering digital services. 

They include the:

• Public Sector Equality Duty (GOV.UK)
• Equality Act 2010 (GOV.UK)
• Public Sector Bodies Websites and Mobile Applications Accessibility Regulations 2018 (GOV.UK)

All public sector websites and apps must meet these regulations,  even if they've been outsourced to an external supplier.

This includes public facing websites as well as internal services only used by our employees. 

To meet these requirements, we are responsible for:

• the content we create or commission and how it's published  
• how we design the technical components of our websites work with content  

This means we must make sure content is: 

• navigable, readable and understandable for our users
• published using content creation software correctly so that it works for users on their devices and with software they commonly use 

To help us do this, we follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Compliance does not mean 'works for everyone'

There's a difference between being legally compliant and having a service which works for people. 

Legal compliance is the bare minimum, but does not guarantee our service will work for all our users.

There may be other things we need to do, like::

• understand users and their needs
• solve a whole problem for our users
• make the service simple to use
• provide a joined up experience across all channels
• choose the right tools and technology
• make sure everyone can use the service by testing it
• review content and improve frequently