Accessibility Statement

Our promise for accessibility

This accessibility statement applies to https://www.collingbourne-ducis.com/. We’re working to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 standards.

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 is this website?

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

• the text will not reflow in a single column when you change the size of the browser window

• you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text

• 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 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

Reporting accessibility problems and sharing feedback

We’re 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.

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please get in touch through our contact page. We’ll consider your request and do everything possible to accommodate your needs.

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).

Compliance status

Collingbourne Ducis 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.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to [insert one of the following: ‘the non-compliances’, ‘the exemptions’ or ‘the non-compliances and exemptions’] listed below.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations.

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet:

• WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).

• WCAG 2.0 success criterion 2.4.5 Multiple Ways

• WCAG 2.0 success criterion 2.4.8 Location

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 documents such as agendas, minutes and financial documents prior to 2018.

The Council are required, by law, to upload a number of documents that have been approved and signed (the end of year audit for example), this is done by scanning the document and uploading as a PDF filetype. The very nature of a scanned document is not accessible and often OCR conversion of the document is not perfect. This will be reviewed, likely in 2025 to see if technology or regulations have changed.

Any new PDFs or Word documents the Council publish will aim to meet accessibility standards, unless these documents are in a format which cannot be made accessible easily. If you are unable to access any document on this website due to its format, please contact the Clerk via the methods mentioned above.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We’re running regular accessibility checks to ensure that new content added to the website meets accessibility requirements where possible.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 23 March 2022.

This website was last tested on 23 March 2022. The test was carried out via Collingbourne Ducis Parish Council (self-evaluation) on representative pages following the Government accessibility checklist.

We focused on the most popular website pages to test, including the homepage and the meetings documents page.