Accessibility statement guidelines for the University's websites

Advisory

If you simply edit content on a University-supported web-editing platform, such as T4 or ELE, you won't be involved in the production or editing of accessibility statements, and there is no requirement for you to read the information on this page.

The following information discusses accessibility statements for the University's websites. Any University mobile app that is used by the general public will also require an accessibility statement, but this information is not designed for that type of statement.

What is an accessibility statement?

An accessibilty statement is a webpage that, among other details, lists all the ways in which a website is not currently compliant with regulatory assessment criteria, together with information detailing what is being done to remedy this.

UK legislation requires the websites of public sector organisations to be covered by an accessibility statement, even if the content is behind a login and/or fully exempt and/or fully compliant.

The statement must be published on a public facing area of the University website, unless the site in question has restricted access (i.e. accessed via a login), in which case the statement does not need to be public, as long as it's clearly available to users who have logged in to that site.

A statement may cover several websites, but often – especially where different web creation platforms are used – an institution will have multiple accessibility statements, each one covering different content.

Who creates accessibility statements?

Accessibility statements at the University are managed by those responsible for:

the platform on which the content is produced (e.g. those managing T4 or ELE as a whole)
or
the commissioning of the website if it's a stand-alone product.

How to create an accessibility statement

If you need to create an accessibility statement, before you begin, please be certain that the website isn't already covered by an existing statement. If in doubt, please contact the technical team supporting the web editing platform you use.

For guidance on the creation of a statement, please refer to the Government's model accessibility statement (external website – link opens in new window).

As an example of a statement, see the University's accessibility statement for its T4 websites (link opens in new window).

Please note that even where content is exempt on your accessibility statement, it will still be subject to the requirements of the Equality Act 2010. Please see UK regulations for further details.

Checking your site

When creating the statement you'll need help from someone with experience in web code – and, ideally, web accessibility – if you don't have this background yourself, because your website will need to be scanned and the results correctly interpreted. In addition, there will be aspects that can't be checked with automated scanners, and those will need manual review.

Scanners

If you don't have access to a subscribed web accessibility scanning service, one of the following free options should be used, and it's recommended that, whichever one you choose, it should be installed on a University computer via one of the following links:

If you use one of these three options, please be sure that both your browser and any updates to these extensions are kept up-to-date.

Scan results

If your site has non-compliant elements, you'll need to list them on the statement, but you will also need to put a plan in place for remedying them and then update the statement when this has been done.

Ongoing maintenance

Also bear in mind that if your site is to be edited at all, it will need to be rescanned and manually checked periodically, to ensure that the level of accessibility has been maintained.