RFP QUESTION 3.14

Accessibility by design

"Please provide your approach to accessibility and ensuring all communications meet required accessibility standards."
Accessibility and inclusion are baked into how we work. For the Royal Mail membership — a large, geographically dispersed workforce, many in manual roles, with varying levels of digital confidence and predominantly mobile-first access — that means every communication is designed with this audience in mind from day one.

Built into the team

Accessibility understanding sits across the whole team — strategists, designers, and anyone who reviews content before it goes out. That covers WCAG 2.1 AA, plain-English principles and inclusive design, as well as a working understanding of the full range of member needs: visual, auditory, cognitive and motor impairments, lower digital confidence, and reliance on assistive technologies.

Built into the process

Every project is reviewed for accessibility at briefing, design, content review and pre-publication sign-off, with clear ownership at each stage. Core templates are validated before being used at scale, using automated tools and manual review in combination.

Built into improvement

Member feedback, queries and engagement data are reviewed for accessibility-related patterns after every key communication. Issues are addressed and insights fed back into future work — so the standard moves forward, not just sideways.

Supporting Trustee governance

We work with trustees to review accessibility against TPR's guidance on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) considerations and the DC code of practice. While it’s aimed at trustees of DC schemes, we believe many of the points apply to other schemes and should be viewed as best practice guidelines when considering your duties for communicating with members. We’ve also developed a structured checklist to help identify any gaps and provide practical recommendations to address them.

Jump to a response

Each question from the RFP has its own dedicated page. Use the links below to jump straight to any response.

  1. What we bring
  2. Our experience in practice
  3. Ready to go
  4. One team, full scope
  5. Our rates
  6. Our feedback
  7. How we think about CDC
  8. Communicating adjustments with confidence
  9. Bringing CDC to life
  10. The messages that matter
  11. Measuring success
  12. Terms of business
  13. Accessibility by design
  14. Thanks from Sarah