Website Accessibility
Accessibility
We take seriously the issue of access for the disabled, and ensuring accessibility for all on our website is important to our commitment to our customers.
To ensure that we meet the highest standards of access for all, we actively test and modify our pages to meet the required government level of accessibility, tested against the Web Accessibility Initiative recommendations as published by the World Wide Web Consortium as well as the standards and guidance given by Gov.uk.
We aim to meet all 4 principles of perceivable, operable, understandable and robust within the WAI recommendations on all our pages. (Unfortunately, on occasion this is not possible where external third party applications do not pass all accessibility checks.)
When we implemented this website we revised and restructured the design to enable a dramatic improvement in the level of accessibility compliance across the site.
Content and readability
All the content has been reviewed to use plain English and we have made the content easy to read. We have also used easily distinguishable icons to allow easier navigation throughout the site.
Adobe Acrobat PDF documents
Many documents and reports within the site are published in PDF (Portable Document Format), and occasionally in Microsoft Word format too.
Viewers with visual difficulties may find it useful to investigate services that improve the accessibility of Acrobat documents at http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/.
Readspeaker
The Readspeaker (external link) speech system is used on our website to enable visitors to hear the content of pages. At the bottom of each page, there is a 'Listen' link which will open Readspeaker. The web page can then be listened to in whole or part by using different controls to activate the Readspeaker speech.
Contact us
If you are or someone you know is experiencing problems accessing this website, or if you have any comments on its accessibility, please (contact us) and we will do our very best to help.
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