Disproportionate burden

Disproportionate burden is a clause within the accessibility regulations that provides some reprieve based on an organisation's remit, and the size and cost of remediation work. Meeting the clause requires the organisation to carry out a test.

The disproportionate burden test

When testing for disproportionate burden, you must consider the scale and capacity of the organisation to resolve the issue.

Evaluate:

  • cost of making the product or website accessible
  • people needed to resolve the issue
  • benefit to users with disabilities
  • how often the product is used
  • how long people spend interacting with it

You should also:

  • show what disproportionate burden you are applying in your accessibility statement
  • publish your evidence and test outcomes

The disproportionate burden clause is appropriate for smaller organisations, like a parish council that are run on a largely voluntary basis.

It's the prioritisation or lack of designing for accessibility at the start, and throughout, that causes issues or increased expense. DfE has considerable funding, therefore, it is not appropriate for us to apply it in DfE.

When you remove the rationale of money and time - the disproportionate burden route only:

  • increases governance and internal processes
  • opens DfE to scrutiny, as people will ask for and publicise details of the decision and calculation of the request
  • slows down wider take-up of the regulations

How to manage accessibility issues

If your service or content is being decommissioned, use accessibility statements to provide timescales.

If you are managing content, prioritise fixing or removing inaccessible information published after September 2018.


Information about this page
Created
18 July 2024
Last reviewed
18 July 2024
Last updated
18 July 2024
Reason this page exists
This page exists to help people understand how to manage and prioritise accessibility issues and apply disproportionate burden if appropriate.
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Issue 63