While the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has made progress in ensuring its website and IT systems are accessible to all, a new report from the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that there are still areas for improvement.
Specifically, the report looks at Section 508 requirements and VA policies and procedures to see if the agency has been taking the necessary actions to ensure VA technology is accessible to individuals with disabilities.
The OIG acknowledged that the VA is “working toward addressing compliance concerns” regarding accessibility by focusing on its most used websites first, and then planning to address those with fewer visits.
“However, the OIG found areas where VA’s efforts and monitoring could be improved,” the report says. “For instance, web managers did not meet their responsibilities to ensure compliance with Section 508 requirements. Web communications offices also did not consistently enforce the requirement that web managers add and certify all internet and intranet sites in the Web Registry.”
The OIG’s audit – conducted from October 2022 through September 2023 – found that the VA also lacked a scanning tool to track website accessibility compliance from October 2021 to December 2022.
However, the VA said a contractor began conducting these scans in February 2023, and it had full scanning and reporting functionality in place for websites as of August 2023.
“The web platforms in VA grew up over decades, and there’s a mixed bag of accessibility,” VA Chief Technology Officer Charles Worthington told reporters on Thursday afternoon.
“I do think we’re doing a pretty good job on our most used transactions and our most used pages,” he added. “Every time we move something onto VA.gov, we really make sure that it works well for assistive devices and for a variety of users.”
In addition to websites, the report found that the VA also has room for improvement in ensuring the compliance of its IT systems. For instance, the OIG found that information system owners were often not aware of accessibility requirements or their duty to carry out these procedures.
The OIG also found that the VA had three directives related to accessibility, systems management, and web-based collaboration technologies that had not been recertified within the required timelines.
“Until VA addresses all compliance issues, the information access provided to individuals with disabilities may not be comparable to the access provided to those without disabilities,” the report says.
The OIG made six recommendations to the VA, including that it develop and implement a strategy with milestones for identifying all VA websites, confirm their inclusion in VA’s Web Registry, certify their accuracy annually or as changes occur, and establish a mechanism for web communication offices across VA to enforce web policy.
Additionally, the OIG said, “system owners should also be educated on policy requirements to request accessibility audits and ensure information technology system accessibility designations are accurate in the VA Systems Inventory, and the three deficient directives need to be updated and republished.”
The VA concurred with all of the recommendations and provided corrective action plans.
