A suggested compliance pathway for Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations, produced in January 2019.

1. 23 September 2019
 All in-scope
University websites
must have
accessibility
statements.
 University processes
for compliance with
accessibility
regulations must be
in place and live.
PSBAR Compliance Pathway
Determine which
services are in-
scope.
Identify which
parts of each in-
scope service
and content
hosted within
each in-scope
service do NOT
meet the new
accessibility
regulations and
why.
Baseline the
accessibility of
all content held
within each in-
scope service.
Prioritise which
non-accessible
content should
be made
accessible first.
Build a
programme for
making
inaccessible
content
accessible,
assign and
report on
progress.
Initiate staff
development on
the creation of
accessible
content.
Design a
mechanism
where those
with access
needs can obtain
alternative
accessible
versions of
inaccessible
content hosted
within in-scope
services.
Establish
method for users
to report
accessibility
problems to the
University and
how they can
escalate to a
government
website if they
are not satisfied
with the
University’s
response.
Create template
accessibility
statement to be
used for in-scope
services.
Legal Services /
other board to
approve
accessibility
statement
template.
Embed these
new processes
within the
procedures for
initiating
new/future
services. This
includes a
process for
checking
changes to
existing services
Service owners
of relevant
services to
complete the
template to suit
each of the
services for
which they are
responsible.
Legal services /
other board to
approve the
accessibility
statements of
each service.
Service owners
to arrange for
publication of
accessibility
statements on
each in-scope
service.
Potentially in-scope services
The iSolutions service catalogue lists
252 live services where students are
considered to be part of the user
community.
What is covered?
Deadline to comply
with the regulations
Websites / materials (published after 22
September 2018)
22 September 2019
Websites / materials published before 22
September 2018) and recorded videos
22 September 2020
Public sector mobile applications 22 June 2021
Accessible content?
While popular formats such as PDF and DOCX
have features to improve accessibility these rely
on appropriate usage, e.g. adding table headers,
alternate text to images, and ensuring that
scanned text is machine readable.
Impact of non-compliance
Non-compliance can lead to civil legal action taken by the student or it can lead
to a public statement of non-compliance (compliance notice) issued by the
Equality and Human Rights Commission or the Cabinet Office. The former may
have financial implications, and the latter would represent
a significant negative impact on the institution’s reputation.
Accessibility Statements
Must be based on a template statement that will be provided by early 2019 by the Government Digital Service.
The accessibility statement must say :
• which parts of the service do not meet accessibility standards and why.
• how people with access needs can get alternatives to content that is not accessible.
• how to make contact to report accessibility problems - and a link (to be announced) to the government
website that they can use if they are not satisfied with the response they receive.
The accessibility statement can include information outside of the government template (e.g. links to pages that
explain how to use accessibility feature in browsers, etc).
Matthew Deeprose
For further information read the iSolutions Systems Board Briefing Document, “The Public Sector Bodies
(Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018” available at: http://go.soton.ac.uk/arg