Accessibility Statement
Accessibility Statement for Website, adopted 7 September 2020
This Policy follows the UK Government’s published Sample template
This Accessibility Statement applies to Rowlands Castle Parish Council’s website: www.rowlandscastlepc.org.uk
This website is run by Rowlands Castle Parish Council. The Council wants 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 have 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. For more information, use this link: https://abilitynet.org.uk/
Accessibility of this website
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible, for example:
- The text will not reflow in a single column when you change the browser window size
- You cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
- Most pre-Sept 2020 PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- Any live video streams do not have captions
- Some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
- You cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
- There’s a limit to how far you can magnify the map on our ‘contact us’ page
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, please contact us on clerk@rowlandscastlepc.org.uk or
Telephone 02392 413044.
We will consider your request and get back to you in 3 working days.
If you cannot view the map on our ‘Contact’ page, call or email us on the details listed above for directions.
Reporting accessibility problems with this website
We are always looking 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, please contact us on the details listed in the previous section of this document.
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).
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
Rowlands Castle Parish 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:
Issues with PDFs and other documents: Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards eg they may not be marked up so they’re accessible to a screen reader. The Accessibility Regulations 2018 do not require us to fix PDFs and other documents published before 23 September 2108 if they are not essential to providing our services. Some documents published after that date may not be fully accessible either and we are currently working through such documents to see whether they can be made so.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
- Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). We plan to add text alternatives for all images by September 2020. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
Navigation and accessing information
- There’s no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option).
- It’s not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content.
- It’s not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping.
Interactive tools and transactions
- Some of our interactive forms are difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, because some form controls are missing a ‘label’ tag.
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. By October 2020, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
We are currently liaising with our website designer, VoxIT, as to how much of our website we can feasible make as accessible as possible; we await a response. Once received, we will prioritise their recommendations and progress accordingly by December 2020.
Preparation of this Accessibility Statement
This Statement was prepared on 22 September 2020. It is an Interim Accessibility Statement whilst our website designer verifies and confirms the details in our draft Full Accessibility Statement. Subsequently, the Statement will be reviewed at least annually but likely in a few months’ time, once our website designer’s recommendations have been received and works prioritised thereon.
This website was last tested on 22 September 2020. The test was carried out by Rowlands Castle Parish Council using the Wave Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool. In undertaking the test, we focused our sample on pages with regulatory requirements (Minutes, Agendas, Financial Information) and the Home Page itself.
