Survey for a Register of Public Sector Websites and Mobile Applications for Monitoring
Survey to develop a register of public sector websites and mobile apps for accessibility monitoring
Public bodies in Ireland must ensure their websites and mobile apps are accessible to all people, including persons with disabilities.
The European Union (Accessibility of Websites and Mobile Applications of Public Sector Bodies) Regulations 2020 came into force on 23 September 2020. The 2020 Regulations give effect to the EU "Web Accessibility Directive".
Public sector bodies are required to comply with the 2020 Regulations by ensuring their websites and mobile apps meet international accessibility standards. They must also publish and maintain an Accessibility Statement about their websites or mobile apps.
The 2020 Regulations name the National Disability Authority (NDA) as the National Monitoring Body for the Directive. NDA is required to periodically monitor the compliance of websites and mobile apps of public sector bodies with the accessibility requirements set out in the Regulations. These accessibility requirements are equivalent to Level AA with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1.
The NDA will commence reviewing a selection of websites and mobile apps for compliance in September 2021. A first monitoring Report is due to be submitted by the Minister of the Environment, Climate and Communications to the European Commission in December 2021.
Register of public sector websites ands app for monitoring
The NDA wishes to produce a Register of websites and mobile apps to be monitored in a given period. Both the Register and the Monitoring report will be made available on the NDA website.
This Register is being developed in consultation with national stakeholders including persons with disabilities and their representative organisations.
The selection of the sample for websites should include websites representing as much as possible the variety of services provided by the public sector bodies. According the Web Accessibility Directive, this includes “social protection, health, transport, education, employment and taxes, environmental protection, recreation and culture, housing and community amenities and public order and safety.” (Clause 2.2 Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1524)
Once the Register is established, NDA will commence monitoring approximately 50 websites and a small number of mobile apps for compliance with the standards set out under the Directive.
We intend to increase the number of websites to be monitored in 2022. Both the Register of public bodies subject to monitoring and the results of the monitoring will be published to the NDA website.
The Survey
The survey takes only 5 minutes to complete and will be open until Friday 10rd September 2021.
Please complete the survey in SurveyMonkey (opens in a new tab)
If you prefer you can complete the survey in a Word document and return to webaccessmonitor@nda.ie
Kind regards,
Dónal Rice
email: djrice@nda.ie
telephone: 086 8567 357