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A parish council accessibility statement is a page on your council website that says how accessible the site is, what isn’t accessible yet and how people can get information in another way. Parish, town and community councils have to publish one. This guide explains what it must cover, how to do a basic check of your site first, and the problems we see most often on council websites. It’s written for clerks and councillors, not web developers.
This is a practical guide, not legal advice. If you’re unsure what applies to your council, ask your county association, NALC or One Voice Wales.
Try the free tool: our accessibility statement generator asks you a few questions about your site and builds a draft statement you can edit and publish.
Why parish councils need an accessibility statement
The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 apply to public sector bodies, and NALC says these include parish and town councils. Community and town councils in Wales are covered too. The standard used is WCAG 2.2 AA, a set of checks that make websites usable for people with sight loss, hearing loss, limited movement or learning difficulties.
The regulations don’t expect a small council to have a perfect website. They do expect you to know where it falls short, say so honestly and explain how people can get what they need.
What a parish council accessibility statement must cover
Most statements follow the same order. Keep the language plain and the sections short.
1. Who the statement is for and how accessible the site is
Start with a sentence saying which website the statement covers, for example “This statement applies to the website of Example Parish Council at exampleparish.org.uk”.
Then give the compliance status. There are three options:
- Fully compliant with WCAG 2.2 AA
- Partially compliant, because some content doesn’t yet meet the standard
- Not compliant, because most of it doesn’t
Most council websites are partially compliant, usually because of older PDFs. Saying so is fine. Claiming to be fully compliant when you haven’t checked is not.
2. Content that isn’t accessible, and why
List the problems you know about, in plain words. For each one, say what it is and, if you can, when you plan to fix it. For example:
- “Some minutes from 2019 to 2022 are scanned PDFs that screen readers can’t read. We plan to replace them with accessible versions by March.”
- “The map of allotment plots is an image with no text description.”
The regulations give three reasons something might not be fixed:
- It doesn’t meet the regulations yet, and you’re working on it.
- Disproportionate burden. This is when fixing something would cost more than the council could reasonably manage. It isn’t a blanket exemption. You need a written assessment that weighs the cost against the benefit to the people who would use it.
- It’s outside the scope of the regulations. PDFs and other documents published before 23 September 2018 are usually exempt, unless someone needs them to use a service the council actively provides. Live video is also exempt.
3. How to request another format
Tell people how to get information in a different format, such as large print, an accessible PDF, plain text or an audio recording. Give the clerk’s email address and a postal address, and say roughly how long it will take to reply. Only offer formats the council can actually provide.
4. How to report a problem
Give a way to report accessibility problems with the site. The clerk’s email address is usually enough. Say what you’ll do with the report, for example “We’ll reply within 10 working days”.
5. The enforcement procedure
Every statement needs a short paragraph on enforcement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) enforces the regulations in England, Scotland and Wales. If someone contacts the council about accessibility and isn’t happy with the response, they can contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS). Include a link to the EASS website.
6. When the statement was prepared and last reviewed
Finish with the date the statement was prepared, the date it was last reviewed and how the site was tested (for example, “tested by the clerk using a free checking tool in October”). Review the statement at least once a year. A good time is when the annual accounts go up, as you’ll be on the website anyway.
How to do a basic check of your council website
You don’t need to be a web developer to find the most common problems. Set aside an hour and work through these:
- Use the keyboard only. Put the mouse away and press Tab to move through a few pages. Can you reach every link and button? Can you see where you are on the page?
- Zoom in to 200%. Hold Ctrl (or Cmd on a Mac) and press + a few times. Does the text still fit on the screen, or do you have to scroll sideways?
- Open your PDFs. Try to select a line of text in each one. If you can’t, it’s a scan, and a screen reader can’t read it either.
- Read your link text. Links that say “click here” or “read more” don’t make sense on their own. A link should say where it goes, such as “March 2026 minutes”.
- Check the colours. Pale grey text on white, or white text on a light colour, is hard to read. Use our colour contrast checker to test your main colours. Normal text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1.
- Look at the images. Any image that carries information, like a poster or a map, needs a text description.
- Try an automated checker. Free browser tools such as WAVE or the accessibility checks built into Chrome’s Lighthouse will flag things like missing image descriptions and missing form labels. They won’t catch everything, but they’re a good start.
Write down what you find. That list becomes the “content that isn’t accessible” part of your statement.
Common accessibility problems on parish council websites
Scanned PDFs of minutes
This is the big one. The clerk prints the minutes, the chair signs them, and the signed copy is scanned and uploaded. To a screen reader, that’s a picture with no text. The fix is to publish the Word version saved straight to PDF (or as a web page), and keep the signed copy on file at the council. If you have to publish a scan, publish a text version alongside it.
Images of text
Posters for the village fete, notices about road closures and the annual parish meeting are often uploaded as a JPEG of a poster. Put the key details (what, when, where) as text on the page, and use the poster as an extra.
Missing link text
Lists of documents where every link says “Download” or “PDF”. Name each link after the document, such as “Annual governance statement 2025 to 2026 (PDF)”.
Colour contrast
Council colour schemes are often a gentle green or a pale blue. They look nice, but light text on those colours can fail the 4.5:1 contrast check. Our guide to colour contrast for websites explains how to fix it without changing your whole look.
Maps
Maps of the parish boundary, footpaths or allotments are usually images or embedded map tools. Add a short text description that gives the same key information, such as which roads or streets the boundary follows, or offer the information in another format on request.
Documents without headings
Long policies and reports written in Word without proper heading styles are hard to navigate with a screen reader. Using Word’s built-in Heading 1 and Heading 2 styles before saving as PDF makes a big difference, and it takes a few minutes.
Who is responsible for the statement?
The council is. If someone else looks after your website, they can help you test it and write the statement, but the council publishes it and answers for it. Make sure the clerk knows where it is and when it’s due for review.
Getting help with your council website
We build websites for parish, town and community councils for £47 a month. We build them to WCAG 2.2 AA, test the pages before launch and write the accessibility statement with you. When the clerk emails us a document that isn’t accessible, we say so and suggest how to fix it. We can’t guarantee compliance, as the council stays responsible, but we take the technical side off the clerk’s desk. See websites for parish, town and community councils for what’s included, or book a free call.