Compliance for municipalities and public websites

The short answer

A public sector website carries obligations a business website does not. Accessibility is a legal requirement under the Web Accessibility Directive as implemented nationally, with a published accessibility statement in a prescribed model, a feedback mechanism, an escalation route and monitoring by supervisory bodies. Published content may constitute a public record, bringing archiving and retention obligations that affect how the site is versioned and how you demonstrate what it said on a given date. Procurement rules govern how the site is bought and typically require consideration of open standards and avoidance of supplier lock-in. Transparency obligations extend beyond documents to how decisions are made, which is why algorithm registers describing automated systems have become established practice and are increasingly expected. And the audience is everyone, which raises the bar for plain language, for multilingual provision where relevant, and for channels beyond the web. On top of all that sit the ordinary requirements: privacy, cookies, security and identification.

The obligations in outline

Area	Requirement	Practical implication
Accessibility	Conform to the standard; publish a statement; provide feedback and escalation; monitored	Audit, fix, publish, maintain; build checks into the process
Archiving	Published content may be a public record with retention and preservation duties	Versioning; ability to show past states; disposal per schedule
Procurement	Rules on tendering; open standards; avoiding lock-in	Specify ownership, exit and standards in the tender
Transparency	Information about decisions and automated processing	Algorithm register; plain explanations
Privacy	Usual obligations plus a higher bar for a public authority	Data protection officer; impact assessments; published statements
Security	Baseline requirements and, for some bodies, sector obligations	Monitoring, patching, incident procedures
Plain language	Expected and often mandated	Editorial standards and testing with residents
Channel equity	Services must remain reachable by non-digital means	The website is one channel, not the only one

Running a compliant public website

Where the effort actually goes

Not in the legal reading but in the publishing process. Accessibility holds only if every new page and document meets it, which means editors need training, templates need to be accessible by construction, and documents, especially PDFs, need attention or replacement with web pages. Archiving holds only if versioning is built in. Transparency holds only if the register is updated when systems change. Each is a process change rather than a project, and each fails quietly when it depends on someone remembering.

What this means for you

A public website must meet accessibility with an honest published statement and a feedback route, handle published content as records with versioning and retention, procure with open standards and exit in mind, publish transparency information including an algorithm register, write in plain language and keep non-digital channels open. Build the obligations into the publishing process rather than treating them as periodic projects. This is general information rather than legal advice; national implementation governs your specific duties.