"To reflect recent changes to internet technology a cross-agency team will begin a comprehensive review of the guidelines," says an SSC statement issued last week. A draft consultation paper will be issued in September, and the revision is planned to be complete by December, at which point the new guidelines will become mandatory for government agencies.

Subsequent to the issuing of the original guidelines, "browsers have matured," says Edwin Bruce, the SSC's manager of e-government projects. Sites are placing a heavier emphasis on transactions, which are not fully covered in the current version of the standards.

"I suppose we were a little optimistic" in imposing a compliance deadline of January 1 this year, Bruce says. It is reasonable not to expect agencies to disrupt existing development plans which may have been plotted to last as long as 18 months, he says. Nevertheless a survey of sites done for the Office for Disability Issues in mid-2005 found significant progress in making sites accessible.

As expected, some organizations have been given exemptions from some aspects of compliance. These include Land Information NZ with approval to use nonstandard formats for map images and the National Library, which can use non-HTML formats on content that it did not produce and to which it does not own the copyright.

Coincidentally, last week saw Linz notify solicitors and surveyors that it would require all of them to use its electronic channel Landonline to lodge all transactions by July 2008. Disability activists have questioned how disabled solicitors might comply with this requirement in the face of incomplete compliance with the guidelines at Linz.