WCAG 2.2 AA Compliance for Parish and Town Councils — A Plain English Guide

If you are a parish or town council clerk trying to understand what WCAG 2.2 AA compliance means and why your website needs to meet it, this guide is written for you. We will explain what the regulations require, what failing to comply means in practice, and what your council needs to do to get — and stay — compliant.

What Is WCAG 2.2 AA?

WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These are internationally recognised standards published by the W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium) that define how websites should be built to be accessible to people with disabilities. The current version is WCAG 2.2, and the AA level is the standard required for UK public sector websites.

In practical terms, WCAG 2.2 AA covers things like colour contrast (text must be readable against its background), keyboard navigability (the site must work without a mouse), screen reader compatibility, properly labelled form fields, descriptive link text, and much more. It is a comprehensive set of requirements that touches almost every part of how a website is designed and built.

Are Parish and Town Councils Legally Required to Comply?

Yes. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 require all public sector bodies in the UK — including parish councils and town councils — to ensure their websites meet WCAG 2.1 AA as a minimum. WCAG 2.2 AA is the current recommended standard and the direction of travel for compliance.

Failure to comply is not just a reputational risk. The regulations are enforceable, and the Cabinet Office’s Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) monitors compliance. Councils that fail to publish an accessibility statement, or whose websites do not meet the required standard, can face enforcement action.

What Is Assertion 10?

Assertion 10 is a specific declaration within your council’s accessibility statement confirming that your website meets the required standard. Publishing an accurate accessibility statement — one that truthfully declares your compliance status, lists any known issues, and provides a contact route for users who encounter accessibility problems — is a legal requirement, not optional. Many councils publish generic statements that do not accurately reflect their site’s actual compliance, which itself constitutes a failure.

What Does a Compliant Parish Council Website Actually Look Like?

A fully compliant council website will have been built with accessibility as a core consideration, not retrofitted after the fact. Key requirements include: a colour contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text; all images having descriptive alt text; all form fields having visible labels; navigation being fully operable by keyboard alone; no content that flashes more than three times per second; PDFs and other downloadable documents being accessible (or having accessible alternatives); and all pages having clear, descriptive page titles.

Beyond the technical requirements, the site should be written in plain English, with a clear structure that any member of the public can navigate — including those using screen readers, those with cognitive disabilities, and those accessing the site on older or lower-specification devices.

What About Your Documents?

One of the most common compliance failures for parish and town councils is around downloadable documents — particularly PDFs of meeting minutes, agendas, and financial documents. Scanned PDFs (images of paper documents) are inaccessible to screen readers and are non-compliant. All documents published on your council website should be either properly tagged PDFs, or published as HTML pages, or accompanied by an accessible alternative version.

This is an area many councils overlook entirely. If your clerk is scanning paper minutes and uploading them, those documents almost certainly fail to meet the accessibility requirements.

The .gov.uk Domain

Parish and town councils in England are eligible to register a .gov.uk domain name, which signals legitimacy and public trust. Registering a .gov.uk domain requires your council to confirm that it will meet the accessibility obligations that apply to public sector bodies. Whamos assists councils with the full .gov.uk registration process and can handle the technical verification steps on your behalf.

How Whamos Can Help

At Whamos, we build parish and town council websites from the ground up to meet WCAG 2.2 AA compliance. Every site we deliver includes a formal accessibility statement, properly structured headings, accessible navigation, labelled forms, optimised images with alt text, and a document management workflow that helps your clerk publish minutes and agendas in an accessible format.

We also provide support with .gov.uk domain registration and Assertion 10 compliance declaration. Our council websites start from £2,000, with ongoing maintenance from £25 per month.

If your council’s current website was built some years ago and has never been formally assessed for accessibility, there is a good chance it does not comply. We offer a free initial assessment — contact us and we will let you know where you stand and what needs to be done.

Practical Steps for Getting Compliant

If your council’s website is not currently WCAG 2.2 AA compliant, the path forward involves several steps. First, commission an accessibility audit — either from a specialist accessibility consultant or as part of a website rebuild with an agency that builds to the standard from the outset. This audit will identify the specific failures and prioritise what needs to be fixed.

Second, fix the issues identified — some may be simple (adding alt text to images, fixing colour contrast), others may require rebuilding pages or sections. Third, publish a compliant accessibility statement that accurately describes your compliance status, lists known issues, and provides a mechanism for users to report problems or request accessible alternatives.

Fourth — and often overlooked — establish a process for maintaining compliance going forward. Every time you add a new page, upload a document, or change your site’s design, you need to check that you are not inadvertently introducing new accessibility failures. Training for whoever manages the site’s content is an important part of sustained compliance.

If you are starting from scratch with a new website, choosing an agency that builds to WCAG 2.2 AA from the ground up — rather than building a site and then trying to retrofit accessibility — is significantly more cost-effective and produces better results.