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Accessibility

We are committed to providing a website that is accessible to as many users as possible. Here we have given our accessibility advice and our accessibility statement.

This accessibility statement applies to www.uttlesford.gov.uk

This website is run by Uttlesford District 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. This includes how to:

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website aren't fully accessible:

  • older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • a small number of pages scroll in two dimensions on small screens
  • some form controls do not have unique labels
  • some form fields are not correctly identified
  • a few page headings do not include text

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, you can:

We'll consider your request and respond back to you in 10 working days.
 

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website.

If you find any problems that aren't listed on this page or think we're not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, you can contact the Website Team.
 

Enforcement procedure

If you're not happy with how we respond to your complaint contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

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').
 

Contacting us 

You can call us on 01799 510510. You can also contact us online.
 

Technical information about this website's accessibility

Uttlesford District 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 a number non-compliances.

Non-accessible content

Some content on this website is non-accessible. We have listed why this is.

PDFs and non-HTML documents

Some older PDF documents are in less accessible formats. For example, they may not include tags, specify a language or include bookmarks to aid navigation. Non-HTML documents published on or after 23 September 2018 must have an accessible format.

Pages scroll in two dimensions on small screens

A few pages with large tables scroll in two dimensions. When viewed on small screens (like mobile phones) this content does not fit without requiring scrolling in two dimensions.

This fails WCAG AA success criterion 1.4.10 (Reflow) which specifically requires this for:

  • vertical scrolling content at a width equivalent to 320 CSS pixels
  • horizontal scrolling content at a height equivalent to 256 CSS pixels

Some form controls are not unique

In some of our online forms, such as the General enquiry form, the text input area is not defined with an explicit label. Screen reading software will not be able to properly read the layout of the form.

This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships) which requires that to make forms accessible, they must define explicit text labels for each form control.

Some form fields are not correctly identified

In some of our online forms, such as the General enquiry form, the enquiry fields are not identified programmatically.

This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.5 (Identify Input Purpose) which requires that fields must identify what their purpose is programmatically. If done correctly, this allows browsers to help users fill in forms with known information, such as their name and email address.

A few page headings do not include text

The headings of ages in our A to Z do not contain some machine-readable text content.

This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships) as heading elements (<h1>, <h2>, ...) must contain some machine-readable text content.
 

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

It's not possible for users to modify text spacing or line height.

We have a few embedded videos on our site. Some of these do not have captions.

Some of the images on our site do not display appropriate alt text. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

When we publish new content we'll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.

Interactive tools and transactions

We are aware that some internal applications and externally hosted systems do not comply with accessibility and usability standards.

We will work with our suppliers to improve the accessibility of these sites as much as possible.

Some parts of this site link to or use content provided by other websites and these are not always as accessible as our site. Examples include:

  • YouTube videos
  • Google Maps
     

Content that's 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, and forms published as Word documents. 

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they're not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix our older committee documents.

We publish all essential service information in an accessible web page and provide contact details for alternative versions.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will aim to meet accessibility standards.

If you need information in an alternative format, you can  contact the Web Team.
 

What we're doing to improve accessibility

This statement was published on 12 October 2022.

We continuously monitor our website's accessibility based on automated and manual testing. We have developed and try to stringently follow a style guide to ensure all our content is easy to read and is written in an accessible way.

The Uttlesford District Council website was rated as 'great' by the Silktide Index during 2022.

We are working with suppliers to resolve any identified accessibility issues where we do not have direct control over their product.
 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was last reviewed on 12 October 2022.

This website was last tested on 8 October 2022. The test was carried out by the Website Team at Uttlesford District Council.

We tested this website manually taking a sample of pages using the Wave Accessibility Evaluation Tool. We also tested this website using the automated testing tools on Silktide, which reports its findings to us every week.

Silktide regularly checks the whole of our website and reports on:

  • pages that conform to WCAG A, AA or AAA standards 
  • issues with CSS validation
  • issues with HTML validation
  • PDF accessibility including problems with tagging, language definition, headings and labels