Accessibility
Accessibility statement for bcpcouncil.gov.uk
This accessibility statement applies to bcpcouncil.gov.uk This website is run by BCP Council.
We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:
- change colours, contrast levels and fonts
- zoom in up to 300% 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 website text as simple as possible to understand.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
How accessible this website is
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
- most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- live video streams do not have captions
- some of our online forms are not accessible to people using audio description or translation tools
- some links may not have distinguishable names
- there are some formatting issues with tables
Feedback and contact information
If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, email webcontent@bcpcouncil.gov.uk. We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 20 working days.
Reporting accessibility problems with this website
We want to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, email webcontent@bcpcouncil.gov.uk
Enforcement procedure
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).
Contact us by phone or visit us in person
You can contact us 9am - 5pm Monday to Thursday and 9am - 4:30pm on Friday.
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
BCP Council is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Compliance status
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exceptions listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons:
- Images - some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 criteria 1.1.1 (non-text content). When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets the requirements under accessibility guidelines, following best practice laid out in W3C alt decision tree. Existing non compliant images will be reviewed and updated by the end of this year.
- Tables: the iFrame has no 'title' attribute or the 'title' attribute is empty. This fails WCAG 2.1 guideline 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value. Additionally HTML formatting such as 'border', 'align', or 'bgcolor' is used in some tables, rather that CSS formatting. This fails WCAG 2.1 criteria 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. We are working on table styling issues.
- The purpose of some links is not clear enough to screen readers and some link text is used for multiple different destinations on some pages. This fails WCAG 2.1 guideline 2.4.4 Link Purpose (in context). These errors should be corrected by April 2024.
Disproportionate burden
Interactive forms (online.bcpcouncil.gov.uk)
Our BCP Council main online form portal is built and hosted through third party software and ‘skinned’ to look like our website.
Due to limitations in adxstudio, we are currently unable to add alt text to lookup fields on our online forms platform. However we are developing a new BCP Council portal that does not require adx studio which should resolve this issue. This work has begun and we estimate online forms will be migrated to the new platform by summer 2024. Since there is a plan in place to replace this platform and work has started, we believe it would be a disproportionate burden to seek an interim solution to this issue.
Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
PDFs and other documents
Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services.
The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 unless they're essential to providing our services.
We are working on a disproportionate burden clause for categories of PDF that are not part of an essential service, given the time and cost of making all PDFs accessible and their relatively low levels of usage. Meanwhile, we are prioritising the improvement the accessibility of documents that contain information about how to access or use our statutory services. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.
Video
Some of our older videos do not meet accessibility standards because they do not have captions. The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix videos published before 23 September 2020. New videos will include captions.
Live video
We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 26 May 2022. It was last reviewed on 26 May 2022.
This website was last tested in May 2022. The test was carried out by BCP Council Web Team using Siteimprove and manual testing exercises. Read the accessibility report.