Accessibility Statement

Updating the mandatory accessibility statement

The Understanding accessibility requirements for public sector bodies page states:

"You’re legally responsible for your website meeting accessibility requirements, even if you’ve outsourced your website to a supplier."

This includes writing and updating an accessibility statement.

 

The .gov Sample accessible document policy page states:

"Only organisations who publish documents on the main GOV.UK website should publish an accessible document policy. Public sector bodies who have their own website (for example local authorities) should talk about the accessibility of their documents in the accessibility statement for their website."

 

We have produced a statement to reflect where we think your website is at present. This is linked from a large green Website Accessibility button in the right hand column on every page of your website:

 

We have been cautious and generally noted:

The majority of this website is fully accessible.

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

• you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
• except when using tools such as High Contrast in Google Chrome, you cannot change the font colour
• there may be some old publication documents which are in PDF format, and haven't been designed for accessibility
• there may be some Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Publisher documents which haven't been checked for accessibility and converted to PDF format
• images, which contain text, may not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information
• you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
• content in tables, used to format text, may not be suitably formatted for screen readers
• some widgets, outside editing control, may fail permitted contrast ratios
• some content is embedded in our website, such as maps and videos, and you cannot easily scale these on screen

If you choose not to use our Accessibility services then we believe you should look at your website content and revise your accessibility policy before September 2020, and every year thereafter, to reflect the current position of your testing. This should include document checking for accessibility, removing any images of text, checking layout tables read correctly and making all links meaningful.

 

What you need to do

If not using our Accessibility services, read through your accessibility statement and update as you correct specific areas, i.e., document checking, images of text, table checking and meaningful links.

 

Resources

Understanding accessibility requirements for public sector bodies (.gov reference page)

How the accessibility regulations will be monitored and enforced (.gov reference page)

When you need to meet these regulations (.gov reference page)