Publish an accessibility statement

All University websites should publish an accessibility statement, which should reflect your audit of the site and where it does or doesn’t meet requirements. GDS has provided a sample accessibility statement template for use which meets the new requirements and also aims to provide helpful information to users of a website, service or app. The statement should:

  • be written clearly so that non-technical users can understand
  • be explicit what site(s) the statement covers
  • clearly state whether your website or mobile app is ‘fully’, ‘partially’ or ‘not’ compliant with accessibility standards
  • if it’s not fully compliant, identify which parts of your website or mobile app do not currently meet accessibility standards and why (for example, because they are exempt or it would be a disproportionate burden to fix things)
  • tell users how they can get alternatives to content that’s not accessible to them
  • tell users how to contact you to report accessibility problems - and a link to the website that they can use if they’re not happy with your response.

For any issues you identify, you should list:

  • What the accessibility problems are
  • which of the WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria the problem fails on
  • when you plan to fix the problem