Accessibility statement for chelmsford.gov.uk

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

This website is run by Chelmsford City 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 images have inaccurate alt-text attributes

 

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:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in five working days.

 

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

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, you can contact the Web Team.

 

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

Chelmsford City 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 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  • Some of the images on our site do not display appropriate alt-text. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
    • We will add appropriate text alternatives to our images when we upload new images and fix images we find in our area reviews and manual audits.
  • Some of our PDFs do not declare their language correctly. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 3.1.1 (Language of Page).
    • We will define the correct language for our PDFs when adding new PDFs to the website. We will add the default language property to existing PDFs when we find them in our area reviews and manual audits.
  • Some of our PDFs do not declare their title correctly. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.2 (Page Titled).
    • We will add the correct title for our PDFs when adding new PDFs to the website. We will add the correct title to existing PDFs when we find them in our area reviews and manual audits.

Disproportionate burden

PDF downloads

Our website contains or links to over 2,200 PDF documents. Many of these documents are not created by us and we are not able to control how they have been created or edit their appearance.

If a document is essential to a service we provide, we make sure to provide the information in an accessible way.

If the document is a document that is not essential to a service and has been provided by a third-party, we will try and work with them to address any issues we find. However, we will not be able to fix all PDF documents that were not created in-house, as we do not have control over how they are made and the accessibility checks that third party does.

We believe that fixing all third party PDFs would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations.

 

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

Non-essential historic PDF 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 create and publish will meet accessibility standards. 

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

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

 

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Our accessibility roadmap shows how and when we plan to improve accessibility on this website.

 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 18 April 2024. It was last reviewed on 18 April 2024.

This website was last tested on 18 April 2024. The test was carried out by our Web Team using a random sample of pages.

We used this approach to decide on a sample of pages to test:

  • One page of each type of “page template” were selected
  • The specific examples of each template were selected at random

You can read the full accessibility test report.

 

Is there something wrong with this page?

You can report issues with the website using our website feedback form, which will go directly to the Web Team. This team will be unable to deal with your enquiry if it is not related to the website.