Ad creative software: Leeds accessible ad workflow

What to take away

WCAG accessibility checks for Leeds public-sector campaigns

WCAG is the benchmark for accessible advertising in Leeds. Public sector teams should target WCAG 2.2 level AA for digital ads, landing pages and social posts. That means text alternatives, sufficient contrast, keyboard access and captions for video.

Accessible creative variants are not extras. They are the baseline for local authority campaigns that serve disabled residents. Build them at the start, not after sign-off.

The legal duty behind that baseline is the public sector equality duty in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010. It says a public authority must, in the exercise of its functions, have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination and advance equality of opportunity, and that meeting the needs of disabled persons includes steps to take account of disabled persons' disabilities. A person who is not a public authority but exercises public functions carries the same duty, which is why agencies producing creative for Leeds bodies should expect to show their accessible variants.

Common failures include text baked into images, low contrast calls to action and auto-playing video without controls. Each one can exclude people from a public health message or a waste collection notice.

Government Digital Service guidance can inform accessibility checks, while Leeds teams should document the approval route set by their own organisation. See Government Digital Service - GOV.UK.

A practical check is to test every variant with a screen reader and a keyboard before it goes near an approval workflow. If it fails there, it will fail in the real world.

Several tools are widely used to run these checks. Deque's axe DevTools and WebAIM's WAVE plug into a browser, Siteimprove and Silktide monitor a whole site, and manual testing with a screen reader such as NVDA or VoiceOver catches what automation misses. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 require public bodies, including Leeds City Council, to publish an accessibility statement and to give residents a way to report problems.

Checklist for accessible creative variants

Use the pre-launch checks every advertising variant should pass, from source identity to recovery, to catch these before approval.

Impartiality and propriety rules for local authority advertising

Impartiality checks protect councils from claims of political bias, and they rest on a legal footing. Section 2 of the Local Government Act 1986 prohibits local authorities from publishing material designed to affect public support for a political party. The Code of Recommended Practice on Local Authority Publicity sets the party political neutrality rules. In Leeds, local authority campaigns must avoid party political branding, slogans or colours that favour one group, and must not promote elected members.

The CAP Code applies to public sector advertising claims. It is written by the Committee of Advertising Practice and enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority, and it requires ads to be legal, decent, honest and truthful. Any claim about a service, a saving or a risk must be substantiated before the creative leaves the approval workflow.

Procurement rules also matter. The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 govern how public bodies advertise and award contracts above the thresholds set in those regulations, while Leeds City Council's constitution sets out the contract procedure rules that apply below them. Public sector advertising spend must follow value for money and propriety principles, and the Procurement in the national interest - GOV.UK guidance is relevant when Leeds teams commission agencies or buy creative tools.

Data protection is part of propriety. If a campaign collects personal data or sends direct marketing, UK GDPR, PECR and the ICO's rules apply. The ICO's guidance on direct marketing and the public sector explains consent and the lawful bases public bodies can rely on.

A simple rule: if a resident could reasonably think the council is campaigning for a party or a person, the creative fails the impartiality check.

Impartiality check steps

How approval workflows in creative tools support sign-off

Approval workflows give Leeds public sector teams a clear route from draft to published ad. They replace email chains and shared drives with a visible sequence of checks.

A good workflow routes each variant to the right reviewer: accessibility, legal, communications and the budget holder. It records comments, versions and decisions in one place.

Where the chosen tool supports it, configure the workflow to make WCAG checks required steps. For example, a variant can be held until its contrast check and text alternative are marked complete.

An approval workflow can record the accessibility checks and local sign-offs completed before publication. That gives the team an audit trail of what was checked, by whom and when.

For teams choosing tools, the ad approvals software market in the UK includes platforms such as Adobe Workfront, Frontify and Bynder for review and approval, alongside design tools such as Adobe Creative Cloud and Figma where creative is built. Treat these as different roles in a workflow: check whether the tools selected can retain versions and audit logs, and meet your organisation's data residency requirements.

Setting up the stages: an Adobe Workfront example

Adobe's own documentation for Workfront proofing shows how the checks above map onto software settings. Its Automated Workflows let a team create a series of sequential or parallel review stages, establish dependencies between them, and limit their visibility to certain users; the proof then moves through the stages automatically, notifying the relevant reviewers and approvers.

For a Leeds campaign, that means one stage per check: accessibility first, then impartiality and legal in parallel, then the communications lead and budget holder. Each stage can carry a deadline, a lock, and a reviewer set as the decision maker for that stage, and a stage can be activated when a decision is made on the parent stage, so impartiality review does not open until the accessibility stage has a decision.

The decision options matter for the audit trail. "Changes required" means the reviewer needs to see another revision before the proof moves to the next stage, so a failed contrast check or missing text alternative holds the variant at that stage. Where the same route repeats for every campaign, a Workfront administrator can create Automated Workflow templates so each new proof starts with the same stages and reviewers.

A controlled process from controlled intake to documented withdrawal keeps every asset accounted for, including the accessible variants that were rejected.

Approval workflow steps for a Leeds campaign

Named Leeds public bodies and the campaigns they run

Leeds City Council runs high-volume campaigns on waste and recycling, road safety, council tax and public health. These need accessible variants for print, web and social.

NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board runs vaccination, screening and winter health campaigns across the city. Accessibility is central because these messages reach disabled and older residents.

West Yorkshire Combined Authority runs transport and skills campaigns, including bus and rail messaging. These often need impartiality checks because they touch on public spending and policy.

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust run recruitment and patient information campaigns. These must follow the NHS Identity guidelines for branding and meet the same accessibility standard as council campaigns.

West Yorkshire Police runs public safety and crime prevention campaigns. These require careful impartiality checks and clear factual claims.

Leeds Beckett University and the University of Leeds run student recruitment and public engagement campaigns. As public bodies, they follow similar standards for accessibility and propriety.

Agencies in Leeds that serve these clients should expect accessibility and impartiality checks in every brief. Build them into the creative tool setup, not into a separate spreadsheet.

For the wider rule set, see advertising rules and ethics for creative tool users.

Evidence to keep when an accessible variant is approved

When an accessible variant is approved, the evidence pack is what protects the team later. Keep the approved file, the version number and the date of approval.

Record the WCAG checks that were run, the tool or method used and the result. Note any exceptions and the reason they were accepted.

Keep the impartiality check record, including who reviewed the wording and what they changed. If a claim was substantiated, keep the source.

Store the approval workflow log, showing each reviewer, their decision and the time. This is the audit trail of the team's recorded accessibility checks and local approval steps.

For data-driven campaigns, keep the lawful basis and consent records under UK GDPR and PECR. The ICO expects public bodies to show how they met these rules.

Retain the evidence for the period set by the council's retention schedule. For most public sector campaigns, that is at least the life of the campaign plus the audit window.

Evidence checklist

Common questions