In practice
The accessibility statement – in 30 minutes
Mandatory content, wording aids and the mistakes that stand out immediately during monitoring.
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What is it – and why is it mandatory?
Every public body must publish an “accessibility statement” for its website (and apps) – easy to find, usually in the footer. This is required by the EU Web Accessibility Directive (EU) 2016/2102; a missing or outdated statement is one of the most frequent findings of the monitoring bodies, because it is trivial to check.
The mandatory content
- Compliance status: “fully”, “partially” or “not compliant” – honestly. “Partially compliant” is entirely permissible and the normal case.
- Non-accessible content: name it specifically, with a justification (e.g. disproportionate burden under Section 12b BGG – the Behindertengleichstellungsgesetz, Germany’s federal Disability Equality Act) and – very effective – a timetable for fixing it.
- Date of preparation and of the last review (update annually!).
- Feedback mechanism: a contact route for reporting barriers, including a response time.
- Reference to the enforcement procedure with the contact details of the conciliation body (Schlichtungsstelle).
Sample wording for your PDF collection
“PDF documents that were published before 23 September 2018 and are not required for active administrative procedures are exempt from the obligation. New documents are checked by machine against PDF/UA-1 and WCAG 2.2 before publication. Existing documents are being remediated in order of priority; current status: … of … documents checked.” – The DokAudit admin area provides you with these figures.
The three most common mistakes
- The statement exists but is three years old → looks worse than having none.
- “Fully compliant” is claimed although the PDFs are untagged → a false claim of conformance.
- A feedback mailbox that nobody reads → the report turns straight into a conciliation case.