PSBAR

PSBAR — the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 — is the UK’s domestic transposition of the EU Web Accessibility Directive. It came into force on 23 September 2018 and was retained as UK law after Brexit; the accessibility obligations did not lapse on EU departure.

Scope

PSBAR applies to “public sector bodies,” defined to include:

• Central government departments and agencies.
• Local government (councils, mayoral authorities).
• NHS bodies — trusts, integrated care boards.
• Most universities and further-education colleges.
• Many quangos and arms-length bodies.

Private companies are out of PSBAR’s scope but remain subject to the Equality Act 2010’s anticipatory duty to make reasonable adjustments — which UK courts and the EHRC treat as functionally requiring WCAG-equivalent accessibility for public-facing digital services.

What PSBAR requires

The substantive obligations are:

1. Conformance to WCAG 2.1 Level AA (via EN 301 549 §9). PSBAR was drafted citing WCAG 2.1 directly; an update to track WCAG 2.2 has been discussed but not yet executed.
2. A published accessibility statement in the format defined by the Cabinet Office’s Government Digital Service. Templates and worked examples are on gov.uk.
3. A working feedback mechanism with stated response timelines.
4. Disproportionate-burden documentation where a public body claims that achieving full conformance for a specific element would impose a disproportionate burden — must be documented and reviewed periodically.

Enforcement

The Government Digital Service monitors central-government websites and publishes quarterly reports. For wider public-sector bodies, enforcement authority sits with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The EHRC’s enforcement toolkit includes:

• Compliance notices — formal demand to remediate within a stated period.
• Binding agreements — negotiated remediation plans that the organisation commits to publicly.
• Court proceedings — rare but on the table for sustained non-compliance.

Public criticism by the EHRC of named non-compliant public bodies (particularly NHS trusts and councils) has been the more visible enforcement mechanism in practice.

Operational practice

For UK public-sector digital teams, the operative compliance posture is:

1. Audit against WCAG 2.1 AA (most teams now target 2.2 AA defensively).
2. Publish the statement per the GDS template, including any disproportionate-burden claims with justification.
3. Maintain the feedback mechanism with a real human response within 30 days.
4. Re-audit on a documented schedule (typically annually, with release-gate audits for significant updates).

The most-watched failure pattern under PSBAR is the stale accessibility statement — a statement dated two or three years ago, claiming partial conformance with an old list of known issues that have since been joined by many more.