Singapore GovTech's A11y Team — Manual Testing With Disabled Testers Lifts Fully Accessible High-Traffic Government Websites From 61% to 73%

Singapore's Enabling Masterplan 2030 commits the Smart Nation and Digital Government Group to making all high-traffic government websites fully accessible to persons with disabilities by 2030. Public-sector digital services must already meet WCAG Levels A and AA under the mandatory Digital Service Standards in the IM8 ICT management manual.
GovTech's Accessibility Enabling Team ('A11y Team'), established in 2022, supports agencies with consulting, open-source testing tools and training. Its approach pairs automated checks with manual testing involving persons with disabilities, and its in-house team includes visually impaired testers who run independent accessibility reviews. Capacity-building tools include the A11y Playground, an interactive platform that lets public officers experience accessibility barriers first-hand, and A11y Clinic sessions for agencies. GovTech's lead designer on the portfolio, Joy Ng, won a 2026 Public Sector Transformation Award for this work and frames the aim as binary: a service is either accessible or it is not.
Measured result: in a parliamentary speech on 10 January 2024, Senior Parliamentary Secretary Tan Kiat How stated that the percentage of high-traffic government websites that are fully accessible had risen from 61% in 2022 to 73% in 2023.
Caveats: the figures are the government's own and no independent audit of the 73% was found; more than a quarter of high-traffic sites were still not fully accessible at the last published figure, and no later figure was verified. The standard covers government services, not banks or private apps. The practice is included because it publishes a numeric baseline, a dated target and a testing method that includes disabled testers.

Read the full analysis: https://www.mddi.gov.sg/newsroom/parliamentary-motion-sms-tan-building-an-inclusive-and-safe-digital-society/