WCAG 2.2 for Parish Councils: A Plain-English Guide

Parish and town clerks in Cumbria already juggle agendas, minutes, planning consultations, grant paperwork and the annual return, often on a few hours a week. So when someone mentions “WCAG 2.2”, it is tempting to file it under jargon for big organisations. It is not. Every parish and town council website is covered by the same accessibility law as a county council, and the standard it is measured against has moved on.

This guide explains, in plain English, what WCAG 2.2 is, why it applies to your council, what changed from the previous version and what a small council can practically do about it.

What WCAG 2.2 is

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the international body that sets standards for the web. They describe how to make websites usable by people with a wide range of disabilities, from screen reader users to people who cannot use a mouse or who have cognitive disabilities.

The guidelines are organised into “success criteria”, each graded at level A, AA or AAA. Public sector websites in the UK are expected to meet levels A and AA. WCAG 2.2 became a W3C Recommendation in October 2023, building on WCAG 2.1 from 2018.

Why it applies to your council

The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 require public sector bodies to make their websites accessible and to publish an accessibility statement. Parish and town councils are public sector bodies, so the regulations apply to them however small they are. GOV.UK guidance now points public sector bodies to WCAG 2.2 at level AA as the standard to meet.

Compliance is monitored by the Government Digital Service, and enforcement sits with the Equality and Human Rights Commission in England, Scotland and Wales. Beyond the law, there is the simple fact that many of the residents most dependent on parish services, including older people and those with sight loss, are also the people most likely to struggle with an inaccessible website.

Smaller councils also have obligations under the Transparency Code for Smaller Authorities, which applies to councils with an annual turnover of £25,000 or less and requires certain information to be published online. An accessible website is the natural place for it.

What changed in WCAG 2.2

WCAG 2.2 keeps almost everything from 2.1 and adds nine new success criteria. Six of them sit at levels A and AA, so they matter for councils:

• Focus Not Obscured (Minimum), 2.4.11, AA. When someone moves through the page with the keyboard, the highlighted item must not be completely hidden behind something else, such as a sticky header or cookie banner.
• Dragging Movements, 2.5.7, AA. Anything that needs a drag, such as a map or slider, must also work with a simple click or tap.
• Target Size (Minimum), 2.5.8, AA. Buttons and links must be at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels, or have enough space around them, so that people with limited dexterity can hit them.
• Consistent Help, 3.2.6, A. If your site offers help, such as the clerk’s contact details, it should appear in the same place on every page.
• Redundant Entry, 3.3.7, A. People should not have to type the same information twice in one process, for example on a multi-step form.
• Accessible Authentication (Minimum), 3.3.8, AA. Logging in must not depend on remembering or transcribing things, unless there is an alternative such as allowing password managers and pasting.

One old criterion, 4.1.1 Parsing, has been removed because modern browsers and assistive technology no longer need it.

Where council websites usually fall down

In our experience of council websites around West Cumbria, the same problems come up again and again:

Scanned PDFs

Minutes and agendas are often printed, signed and scanned. A scanned page is just a picture: a screen reader cannot read it, and nobody can search it or enlarge the text cleanly. Where possible, publish minutes as a web page, or at least as a properly tagged PDF created from the original document. The regulations exempt documents published before 23 September 2018 unless they are still needed for an active process, so the focus should be on current and future documents.

Images without descriptions

Photos, posters and maps need alternative text describing what matters. A poster saved as an image, with the event details only in the picture, is invisible to screen reader users.

Poor colour contrast

Pale grey text on white, or white text on a light photo, can be impossible to read for people with low vision. WCAG requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 to 1 for normal text.

Unclear links and headings

Links that say “click here” or “download” tell screen reader users nothing when read out of context. Headings should be real headings in a logical order, not just bold text.

No accessibility statement, or an out-of-date one

Every council website needs one, using the format set out in GOV.UK guidance, saying how accessible the site is, what is not yet accessible and how people can ask for information in another format.

A practical plan for a small council

You do not need a large budget to make real progress.

1. Get an audit. Find out where the site stands against WCAG 2.2 AA. Automated tools catch a good share of problems; a manual check catches the rest.
2. Fix the template first. Most issues with contrast, focus, menus and headings live in the site’s design, so fixing them once fixes every page.
3. Change how you publish. Agree a simple routine for the clerk: write minutes in Word with proper headings, then publish them as a web page or tagged PDF rather than a scan.
4. Publish or update the accessibility statement.
5. Review once a year. It is sensible to tie it to the annual governance cycle. The JPAG Practitioners’ Guide for smaller authorities now includes an assertion on digital and data compliance in the annual governance statement, so websites have become an audit question as well as a legal one.

How we have helped councils locally

We have built WCAG 2.2 AA websites for five councils in our corner of Cumbria: Millom Town Council, Millom Without, Eskdale, Bootle and Whicham. You can read how we approached them, and how we made publishing straightforward for the clerks, in our parish council websites case study. For Whicham Parish Council we also built a motorhome aire booking system that sits within the same accessible approach.

Every site we build through our web design service is designed to meet WCAG 2.2 AA from the start rather than having accessibility bolted on later. We work right across the area, from our home patch covered on our web design in Millom page to towns such as Ulverston and Whitehaven.

Ask us for a check

If you are a clerk or councillor and are not sure where your website stands, we are happy to take a look. Technophobia Ltd is at Unit 13B, Devonshire Road Industrial Estate, Millom LA18 4JS. Call 01229 774591, email hello@technophobia.uk or contact us online, and we will tell you plainly what needs doing and what it is likely to cost.