Written Answers Nos. 99-99
99. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the way his Department and public bodies and agencies under his remit are implementing Action 16 of the National Disability and Inclusion Strategy 2017-2021 (details supplied). [38497/21]
View answerMy Department promotes Action 16 of the National Disability and Inclusion Strategy 2017-2021 when implementing the Public Service ICT Strategy and also through implementation of the eGovernment Strategy 2017-2020, which states under the specific principle “Inclusiveness and accessibility” that “we will design digital public services that are inclusive by default for the widest possible audience (universal design) and cater for a broad range of needs and abilities, including older people and people with disabilities”.
The commitment to accessibility and universal design is further reflected in the recently published Civil Service Renewal 2030 Strategy under the theme “Digital first and innovation”. It states that “by placing the public at the heart of digital services we will create more accessible and valued digital solutions. Adopting a customer-driven service design approach will help to ensure digital solutions are shaped by the needs and wants of the public”.
My Department continues to work on improving accessibility and adoption of universal design principles and had identified a number of compliance related issues with the web accessibility guidelines on gov.ie, the platform which hosts most Government Department websites. Working with the content owners across the Civil Service, the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer addressed the majority of these. A good example where there has been significant improvement is in the adoption by Departments of the use of Plain English in the content they publish on gov.ie which now has an average reading age of 14 as compared to 23 when hosted on individual Departmental sites.
The position in relation to the bodies under the aegis of my Department is set out in the table below.
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Office of Public Works (OPW) |
The OPW is currently undertaking a review process to identify what work needs to be done to meet the relevant accessibility standards. An internal working group has been established and will oversee the implementation of any recommendations arising from the review. A requirement to meet accessibility to WCAG 2.1 is included in OPW procurement competitions for ICT applications. |
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National Shared Services Office (NSSO) |
The National Shared Services Office promote accessibility and universal design principles in the implementation of the Public Service ICT Strategy. All NSSO’s public facing website pages content is formatted in line, with layout and formatting rules set out by gov.ie under governance of the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer. All NSSO’s internal browser based applications are developed and procured guided by a comprehensive Customer Communications Toolkit for the Public Service that follows a universal design approach and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) web accessibility evaluation tools that determine if web content meets accessibility guidelines. The NSSO actively supports employees with disabilities to enable them fulfil their roles. Some supports currently offered to employees include assistive technologies such as voice recognition, text-to speech dictation systems, software that can read the content of webpages aloud and braille keyboards. A vast range of software can be installed that visually alert the user of sounds from the computer or webpage with hearing impairments. There is also workplace equipment and PC accessibility features supplied on request. |
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Public Appointments Service |
The Public Appointments Service undertook a web accessibility audit in August 2020 working with an expert in this field to identify areas for potential improvement in accessibility across our website platforms. As per EU Directive 2016/2102, there is an onus on public bodies to ensure their websites and applications are accessible to users and in particular to persons with disabilities, as well as requiring them to regularly monitor and report on this accessibility. The remediation of those issues began immediately with a significant improvement in compliance with the web accessibility directive implemented throughout 2020 and 2021 to date. Some areas are still in progress for improvement, namely branding and legacy systems, which are road mapped to be addressed throughout 2021 and through the wider organisational digital transformation goals. PAS held training in July 2020 on Accessible Digital Content, which was attended by a number of staff from across the organisation. This was a partner course between the Irish Computer Society (ICS) and the NDA Centre for Excellence in Universal Design (CEUD) that aimed to support the production of digital content that is perceivable, operable and usable by the widest range of people possible. PAS design and/or procure digital solutions with accessibility as a requirement, and conduct audits against best practice. One of the strategic goals of the PAS ED&I strategy is around developing systems and processes that are enabling for candidates from diverse backgrounds. PAS will be engaging external expertise to conduct an ED&I audit of processes later this year, which will include looking at the candidate experience of recruitment with an ED&I lens. Implementing these audit recommendations will be a key focus of work next year. |
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Office of the Ombudsman |
The Office of the Ombudsman follows the accessibility standards on implementation of all ICT Systems, and looks to follow universal design principals on all implementations. |
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State Laboratory |
The State Laboratory use the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) shared services where relevant. The State Laboratory has no bespoke ICT systems that provide a service to the public. |
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Office of the National Lottery Regulator (ORNL) |
The ORNL does not provide any public services either in person or online. |
