Accessibility finding
The accessibility statement does not match what the scan finds
Accessibility Error Severity: High
Part of the audit The accessibility statement claims more than the site delivers. Finding id: accessibility.statementVsFindings.
What it costs you
Visitors with a disability rely on the statement to know what works. A claim of full conformance that the site's own pages contradict misleads them, and it weakens the organisation's position if someone complains.
What to do
Worth checking against the last manual audit; we assume the statement was right when written and the site changed since. Either fix the failures or change the claim to partial conformance and list the known issues.
What it checks
- Claims full conformance despite failures
- Statement older than required review period
- Contact or feedback link broken
- Claimed standard version outdated
How to fix it
Bring the statement in line with the findings
- Open the findings of accessibility.scannerAgreement that two or more scanners agree on.
- Fix what can be fixed now. List the rest in the statement as known issues, with the date you plan to fix each.
- State the conformance level that the findings support.
- Repair or replace every broken link on the statement page, the feedback link first.
- Put the date of this review on the statement.
How to check: Recrawl: the statement is no longer reported.
A real case
UK monitoring of 612 public sector websites in 2020 and 2021 found that 90% had an accessibility statement but only 7% of those statements contained all required information. Issues found in the tests were often missing from the statement.
Thresholds
| Name | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
min_certain_failures | 1 | How many certain failures (the same element and criterion reported by min_scanners or more scanners, level A or AA) contradict a claim of full conformance. |
min_scanners | 2 | How many scanners must report the same element and criterion before a failure counts as certain. |
outdated_version | WCAG 2.0 | A claimed standard that contains this text is queued for review as an old version. |
review_period_days | 365 | Age in days after which a statement is queued for review. Set it to the period that applies to the organisation. |
How to verify by hand
The last manual audit report.
What this relies on
The statement was correct when written.