E-Access Bulletin Live

The UK government set up Ofcom in 2003 to be a ‘super-regulator’ for the nation’s communications industries, merging five former regulatory bodies across the television, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications sectors.

Part of the body’s role includes ensuring equal access to communications technology for disabled people, and in its first five years of operation it has carried out various projects relating to access to television, telecommunications and radio by all users. People with disabilities have been involved for example in work by Ofcom’s Consumer panel, an advisory body representing consumer interests; its broadcasting Content Board, which looks beyond consumer issues to the broader ‘public interest'; and its Advisory Committee on Older and Disabled People.
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Despite rising awareness in the web development community of issues relating to access by people with disabilities, it appears that in one vital sector at least, things may be going backwards.

The 10th annual ‘Better connected’ review of every UK council website from the local government Society of IT Management (Socitm), published this month, has revealed an alarming picture of falling standards.

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The largest conference dedicated to access to technology by people with disabilities ever to take place on the sub-continent was held in New Delhi last month, with assistance from the UK’s leading blindness charity RNIB.
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It is impossible to state a definitive number for the percentage of people who suffer from dyslexia because there is no single definition of dyslexia, delegates heard at this month’s conference on Dyslexia and the Civil Service.
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