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How to make parish council minutes accessible

Last reviewed 17 October 2026. General information for councils in England, not legal advice.

Most of the work involved in accessible minutes happens in Word, before you publish anything. This guide explains what the rules say, why scanned minutes cause problems, and the steps that make the biggest difference.

In short

  • The public sector accessibility regulations cover parish and town council websites, including the documents you publish on them.
  • Documents published from 23 September 2018 onwards are in scope. Older ones generally are not, unless people need them to use a service.
  • A scan of signed minutes is an image. Screen readers cannot read it. Keep the signed copy as your record and publish an accessible version of the same text.
  • Use Word’s heading styles, run the Accessibility Checker, then save as a PDF with accessibility tags turned on. Publish a web page version as well if you can.

What the rules say

The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 came into force on 23 September 2018. GOV.UK guidance says they apply to public sector bodies, including “central government and local government organisations”. Your council must make its website “perceivable, operable, understandable and robust” and publish an accessibility statement (GOV.UK: Understanding accessibility requirements for public sector bodies).

The same guidance says a website meets the legal requirements if it meets the WCAG 2.2 AA standard and has an accessibility statement. It lists the bodies that are exempt or partly exempt, such as some charities and schools. Small councils are not on that list. Instead, a council can carry out a “disproportionate burden” assessment if fixing something would cost too much for the benefit it brings. GOV.UK is clear that “you cannot take things like lack of time or knowledge into account”.

For agendas and minutes, two more points matter:

  • Older documents. PDFs and other documents published before 23 September 2018 do not need fixing, “unless users need them to use a service”. You still need to explain this in your accessibility statement.
  • Publishing deadlines. The Transparency Code for Smaller Authorities applies to councils with an annual turnover of £25,000 or less. It says they should publish draft minutes of formal meetings within one month of the meeting, and agendas and papers at least three clear days before the meeting. Accessible publishing has to fit those timescales.

The AGAR now asks about this as well. The 2025 Practitioners’ Guide says that, to answer “yes” to Assertion 10, all websites must meet WCAG 2.2 AA and the 2018 regulations “(where applicable)”. Read our explainer on AGAR Assertion 10.

Why scanned minutes are a problem

Scanning a printed and signed set of minutes produces a picture of the page. There is no text underneath. A screen reader user hears nothing useful, a person who needs larger text cannot resize it, and nobody can search it.

GOV.UK’s Publishing accessible documents guidance says not to scan documents and convert them to PDF, because “users will not be able to search the content and it won’t be read by a screen reader”. If you only have a paper copy, it says to convert the scanned text using optical character recognition (OCR) first. Even then, recognised text from a scan rarely has proper headings and lists. Publishing from the original Word file is usually quicker and gives a better result.

Signed minutes and the published version

The Local Government Act 1972, Schedule 12, paragraph 41 says minutes “shall be signed at the same or next suitable meeting of the authority by the person presiding”. That paragraph is about signing the formal record. It does not deal with how a copy is published online.

A common approach is to:

  1. keep the signed paper (or signed loose-leaf) minutes as the formal record
  2. publish the same text online from the original Word document, marked as approved and with the date it was signed
  3. make the signed original available for inspection on request

Check your standing orders, and ask your county association if you are unsure what your council needs.

Writing accessible minutes in Word

These steps are based on the GOV.UK guidance on accessible documents and advice published by the Wiltshire Association of Local Councils. Set them up once in a template and they take little extra time.

Use real headings

Use Word’s Heading 1 style for the title, such as “Minutes of the Full Council meeting held on 12 March 2026”. Use Heading 2 for each agenda item. Do not make text bold to make it look like a heading. GOV.UK says to “use headings instead of bold text” and “do not skip heading levels”. Screen reader users jump between headings to find the item they want.

Use Word’s numbering, not typed numbers

Minute references such as “25/26-041” can stay in the heading text. For lists of resolutions or actions, use Word’s list buttons rather than typing numbers or dashes, so that the structure is kept when you export.

Keep tables simple

Payment schedules and planning lists work well as tables. Mark the top row as a header row (Table Design, then Header Row), and avoid merged or split cells. GOV.UK says to “only use tables for data”.

Write links that make sense on their own

Write “Planning application 26/01234/FUL on the district council website” rather than “click here”. Screen reader users often list all the links on a page, out of context.

Describe images, and do not rely on colour

Add alt text to any image that carries information, such as a site plan. A decorative crest does not need a description. Do not mark confidential items in red alone. Label them in words too.

Readable text

GOV.UK suggests a sans serif font such as Arial at a minimum of 12 point, left-aligned text, sentence case, and sentences of about 25 words or fewer.

Give the document a title and a clear file name

Set the title in File, then Info, then Properties. Use a file name such as minutes-full-council-2026-03-12.pdf.

Publishing: web page first, PDF second

GOV.UK says “HTML is the most accessible format for publishing documents” and should be your first choice where possible. A web page version works with the reader’s own text size, colours and assistive technology.

  • Web page. Paste the minutes into a page on your website and re-apply the headings and lists using your website editor. The Wiltshire ALC suggests pasting as plain text to avoid hidden formatting from Word.
  • PDF. If you also publish a PDF, create it from Word, not by printing and scanning. Microsoft’s guide to creating accessible PDFs says to save as PDF, select Options, and make sure “Document structure tags for accessibility” is ticked.
  • Link text. Describe the link and say what format it is, for example “Minutes, Full Council, 12 March 2026 (PDF, 300KB)”.

Checking your work

  • Before export: run Word’s built-in Accessibility Checker and fix what it finds.
  • Quick PDF test: open the PDF and try to select and search the text. If you cannot, it is an image and needs replacing.
  • Web pages: the Wiltshire ALC suggests free browser tools such as WAVE, axe DevTools and Lighthouse, trying the page with only a keyboard, and testing with the NVDA or VoiceOver screen readers.

Automated tools do not find every problem, so a quick manual check is worth doing as well.

Update your accessibility statement

Your accessibility statement must say honestly which parts of your site are not accessible, including older scanned minutes, and how people can ask for another format. GOV.UK publishes a model accessibility statement with wording you must use. Our free accessibility statement generator builds a statement from that model. It runs in your browser and sends nothing to us.

A checklist you can print

Before you publish an agenda or set of minutes
CheckHow
Headings use stylesHeading 1 for the title, Heading 2 for each item, with no skipped levels
Lists use list stylesUse the list buttons, not typed numbers or dashes
Tables have a header rowNo merged cells; header row ticked
Links make sense on their ownNo “click here” or “download”
Images describedAlt text on informative images only
Accessibility Checker runReview, then Check Accessibility in Word
Tagged PDFSave as PDF with “Document structure tags for accessibility” ticked
Text can be selectedOpen the PDF and search for a word
Clear link text on the websiteName, date, format and size
Published on timeAgendas at least 3 clear days before; draft minutes within a month (Transparency Code, turnover up to £25,000)

Sources