MeAC – Measuring Progress of eAccessibility in Europe

Legislation/regulations

As the result of a cabinet committee decision, all public websites must be in compliance with web guidelines which include the W3C guidelines. The goal is to achieve compliance for all public websites to the standards of the ‘webrichtlijnen’ guidelines before 2010, though it appears that there are no sanctions for non-compliance. Also, the first rule of the interdepartmental style guide (2006) obliges public websites to comply with this standard and there is a commitment in the ‘Better Governance’ policy (2003) that the government must be transparent, effective, efficient and accessible for everyone.

Other initiatives

The accessibility of all websites can be checked with a free toolkit which has been created by ICTU, a government-sponsored foundation.

The Stichting Bartiméus Foundation Accessibility certifies and lists web designers who are capable of building websites which comply with web standard W3C/WCAG 1.0 priority 1. It also conducts an annual accessibility monitor that evaluates accessibility of electronic government services, taking the following subjects into account:

• The percentage of government websites that meet minimal requirements of accessibility (W3C/WCAG 1.0 priority 1)
• The percentage of government websites that offer additional functionalities (such as language processing) in order to increase accessibility
• The percentage of government websites that offer the possibility to read information in enlarged character sizes

This monitor is not official and it does not award any label or quality mark.

A quality mark for the accessibility of websites is also available through the foundation Drempelvrij.nl. The criteria are based on the WCAG 1.0 priority 1. This scheme has been set up in cooperation between government, industry, sectoral interest groups and disabled stakeholders. The Foundation also certifies and lists web designers who are capable of building websites which comply with web standard W3C/WCAG 1.0 priority 1. Drempels Weg does not have ‘official’ status – rather it is an awareness tool.

There are no obligations on private websites to be accessible, though they may apply for the Drempels Web certification.

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