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We have carried out a disproportionate burden assessment on our charity publication documents. As a charity, we are legally obliged to publish some of these documents on our website.
Scope
As of September 2018, accessibility legislation states that public sector websites must publish content in an accessible format. These documents are published on our website as PDFs and in some cases, with annual reports as a Flipping Book.
Benefits of creating an accessible version
The benefits of creating an HTML version of these documents would be:
- Fully accessible versions for all users to access
- Documents that are more easily searchable and indexable
Burden
- Each document would require several hours of work to be recreated in a fully accessible version (estimated to take between 2 and 40 hours per document, depending on length and complexity, plus any additional sign off)
- These documents are all officially published documents and publishing new versions would require detailed checking and a lengthy formal sign off process
- Most of these documents contain complex elements which are difficult to convert, such as tables, graphs, and diagrams
Other factors
Also, relevant to the decision are that:
- Interest in these documents is low and few people access them. As a charity we are obliged to publish them
- To date we have not been asked for accessible versions of any of these documents
- We will always assist with accessible versions should we be requested for them
Assessment
Having considered the estimated effort involved in creating HTML versions, along with the low amount of page views and downloads these documents receive, we have concluded that the work involved would be a poor use of staff time. This represents a disproportionate burden on the organisation.
Where possible, for newer documents we have and will continue to create accessible HTML versions, alongside the standard PDF.