Accessibility

We want as many people as possible to be able to use our website. For example, that means you should be able to:

• change colours, contrast levels and fonts
• zoom in up to your browser maximum without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
• navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
• listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We’ve also made the writing as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

If you can’t access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format, like an accessible PDF, large print or audio recording, contact us.

Reporting accessibility problems 

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or if you think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact us.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

This website complies partially with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard. The parts that don’t comply are listed below.

Non-accessible content

1. Some images don’t have a text alternative, so the information in them isn’t available to people using a screen reader. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). We plan to add text alternatives for all images by January 2020. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
2. Some link text in the website does not describe the purpose of the link, instead using text such as “read more” or “find out more”, so listening to links on a screen reader provides no information. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (link purpose). We plan to make the purpose of all links available to all users by January 2020.

Forms

Our forms are built and hosted through third-party software. We have limited control over the code of these forms and their level of accessibility conformance may vary, particularly in relation to WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (information and relationships).

We’ve assessed the cost of building these forms in house and believe that doing so would be a disproportionate burden according to the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when the supplier contract is reviewed.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We work continuously to fix accessibility issues, and regularly audit and test the website for accessibility problems.