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Almost every accessibility tool scans a site for contrast and labelling faults. This one reads the accessibility statement instead, and checks whether it contains what the law actually asks for.
When the Government Digital Service monitored 593 UK public sector websites between February 2020 and November 2021, it found that only about 7 percent had a fully compliant accessibility statement. Around 83 percent had published one that was missing mandatory information, and only 10 percent had none at all. The common failure is not a missing statement. It is a statement that looks finished and quietly omits the parts a disabled user actually needs, most often the route to escalate a complaint.
That is invisible to a scanner. An automated WCAG test can tell you a button has no accessible name; it has nothing to say about whether your statement names an enforcement body, dates its last review, or claims a level of conformance you cannot evidence. Those are the parts a regulator reads first, and they are cheap to fix once someone points at them: after GDS wrote to the organisations it monitored, statement compliance rose from 7 percent to 80 percent.
It does not tell you whether your website is accessible. A statement can pass every check here and still describe a site with serious barriers, and an honest statement often lists more problems than a careless one. For the site itself, use the URL accessibility auditor. To find out whether the EAA applies to you in the first place, use the EAA scope checker.
For UK public sector bodies, yes. Regulation 8 of the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 requires one, in a prescribed form. EU public sector bodies have the same duty under the Web Accessibility Directive, with the format set by Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1523. Under the European Accessibility Act, private sector providers of in-scope services must publish information under Annex V explaining how the service meets the accessibility requirements.
The enforcement route. A statement typically explains the problems and gives a contact address, then stops, without telling people where to escalate if the response is unsatisfactory. In the UK that means naming the Equality Advisory and Support Service, and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland where relevant. Missing review dates are a close second.
When the Government Digital Service monitored 593 UK public sector websites between February 2020 and November 2021, only 39 of them, about 7 percent, had a fully compliant accessibility statement. A further 461, about 83 percent, had published a statement that was missing mandatory information. Only 10 percent had no statement at all, so the dominant failure is an incomplete statement rather than an absent one. After GDS wrote to those organisations, compliance rose to 80 percent, which shows these are cheap fixes once someone points them out.
No, and it is important not to read it that way. This tool grades the document, not the website. A statement can contain every mandatory element while honestly describing a site with serious barriers. In fact a good statement often admits to more problems than a bad one. Use an audit of the pages themselves to judge the site.
At least once a year, and after any significant change to the site. GDS reported in December 2024 that many public sector statements had not been reviewed in the previous 12 months. A statement carrying a review date from several years ago undercuts everything else it says, because it tells a reader the known issues list is probably out of date.
Because naming an overlay widget as your accessibility measure is a documented weak point rather than a remedy. The European Commission has warned that overlay tools may make a website less accessible. A statement that points at a widget instead of describing the underlying fixes tends to attract scrutiny rather than deflect it.
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