sector websites Sweden Regulation Guidelines Self-declaration Provisions in and advisory by public bodies legislation, not documents systematically monitored Disability Guidelines Self-declaration Provisions in Ireland act and and advisory by public bodies legislation, not code of documents systematically practice monitored Equality Guidelines Methodology Provisions in Germany legislation supported by defined for legislation, not development monitoring systematically and compliance monitored monitoring tools The table above shows that Ireland, Sweden and Germany all have policies in place that address website accessibility, including provisions in public procurement. Support measures and approaches to monitoring differ, with Germany taking a more systematic approach backed-up by the provision of web development tools. The availability of a centralised, national-level support/competence structure within the public sector as available in Germany would appear to be effective in achieving a consistent approach to accessibility, even if some smaller issues were still found to persist. All countries could consider the development of centralised support structures and processes, including skills development and the provision of guidance materials, evaluation procedures and development tools to support the development and ongoing maintenance of accessible websites. A first step for all Member States to undertake is to assess these websites current levels of conformance with WCAG 2.0. Based on this assessment, a prioritised action plan will need to consider the best national approach to improving these levels, assuming that the same variance in the level of accessibility in the 7 countries examined in this study exists in other Member States. Section 4.2 on costs and benefits to web accessibility” provides some guidance “Indicative on identifying the likely extent of the effort required to improve the accessibility of public sector websites.
sector websites Sweden Regulation Guidelines and advisory documents Self-declaration by public bodies Provisions in legislation, not systematically monitored Ireland Disability act and code of practice Guidelines and advisory documents Self-declaration by public bodies Provisions in legislation, not systematically monitored Germany Equality legislation Guidelines supported by development and monitoring tools Methodology defined for monitoring compliance Provisions in legislation, not systematically monitored The table above shows that Ireland, Sweden and Germany all have policies in place that address website accessibility, including provisions in public procurement. Support measures and approaches to monitoring differ, with Germany taking a more systematic approach backed-up by the provision of web development tools. The availability of a centralised, national-level support/competence structure within the public sector as available in Germany would appear to be effective in achieving a consistent approach to accessibility, even if some smaller issues were still found to persist. All countries could consider the development of centralised support structures and processes, including skills development and the provision of guidance materials, evaluation procedures and development tools to support the development and ongoing maintenance of accessible websites. A first step for all Member States to undertake is to assess these websites current levels of conformance with WCAG 2.0. Based on this assessment, a prioritised action plan will need to consider the best national approach to improving these levels, assuming that the same variance in the level of accessibility in the 7 countries examined in this study exists in other Member States. Section 4.2 on “Indicative costs and benefits to web accessibility” provides some guidance on identifying the likely extent of the effort required to improve the accessibility of public sector websites.
test-DOC.docx