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Known Issues

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

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

Issue with structure, navigation, links and keyboard operability

Structure:

  • Not all headings are hierarchical, making the site more difficult for users of assistive technology such as screen readers to access. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1.  

We are working with our developers to implement fixes for these structural issues over the coming months.

  • Heading have on occasion been used to highlight information rather than for headings, making the site more difficult for users of assistive technology to use. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.3.1 and 2.4.6.

All text that uses a heading to highlight information but does not serve as a heading will be fixed by November 2021.  

Links:

  • Some links do not use text that is meaningful out of context, which can result in users of screen readers not being able to understand the link without reading the surrounding text and users of speech recognition software being less able to target links accurately using voice commands. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4.

All links will be reviewed and fixed by November 2021

  • Some links to external sites open in a new browser window while some open in the same browser window making the site behaviour unpredictable, which can result in the site being less accessible for people with some cognitive disabilities and people who use screen readers. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.2.2.

All links to external websites will be reviewed and will open in a new browser window by November 2021.

  • The colour of the link text does not meet the minimum contrast requirements against the background. This can limit the site’s accessibility for people with low vision, poor eyesight or colour blindness. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion on 1.4.3.

We are working with our developers to fix the link text colour and increase the contrast. This will be done over the coming months.

Keyboard operability:

  • Carousels do not have obvious controls for users to stop the auto-rotate, which can cause people with cognitive disability that affect focus and concentration to be distracted making the site less accessible. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.2.2.
  • Some menus, links, buttons, and other controls cannot be operated using the keyboard alone, which can cause problems for people who are blind, have low vision and/or hand tremors. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1.

We are working with our developers to implement fixes for these keyboard operability issues over the coming months.

Issues with contrast, use of colour and visual characteristics

  • Some elements have low contrast levels (e.g. links), which can result in text being difficult to read, especially for people with low vision, poor eyesight or colour blindness. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.4.3.

We are working with our developers to implement a fix for this issue over the coming months.

  • Some pages use colour as the sole way to convey important information, which means that users who cannot see colour are unable to perceive the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.1.

All pages with be reviewed and fixed by November 2021.

  • Some pages use visual characteristics (shape, size, colour or location) to communicate instructions, which means that users who are unable to see or recognise information communicated using sensory characteristics are unable to perceive that information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.3.

All pages with be reviewed and fixed by September 2021. 

Issues with language and content

  • Where the language of all or part of a page isn’t English this isn’t defined in the html, which can result in screen readers being unable to correctly read the text. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.1.1 and 3.1.2.
  • The line height, spacing between paragraphs and letter and word spacing cannot be changed without loss of content or functionality. This means that people with low vision, dyslexia or cognitive disabilities may struggle to read the text, or lose content or functionality. This means that people with low vision, dyslexia or cognitive disabilities may struggle to read the text, or lose content or functionality. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.12.
  • When using mobile or tablet devices, it may not be possible to dismiss or interact with some extra content (i.e. pop-up images) without moving focus, losing functionality, or it disappearing. This may cause problems for disabled or sight impaired users as pop-up content may be accidentally triggered or pop-up content may not stay on the screen. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.13.

We are working with our developers to implement fixes for these issues over the coming months.   

Issues with documents, including Word files, PowerPoints, PDFs

  • Many of the documents (Word and PDF) on this site do not meet accessibility standards, which could result in them not being fully accessible to users of screen readers.  

Documents that are essential to the service we provide will be either converted to HTML pages or replaced with accessible versions by November 2021.  

Issues with Content Management System (CMS)

  • The CMS code is being checked to ensure that it meets the robust accessibility criteria 4.1.1, 4.1.2 & 4.1.3.

This will be done as part of an accessibility upgrade of the Haiku Content Management System to be completed in Autumn 2020.

Disproportionate burden

We do not consider any of the accessibility issues to be a disproportionate burden and aim to make the site fully compliant by November 2021.

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

Third-party content

Our site includes third party content and functionality. This may direct you to a related service, link to another site or supporting documentation. We are not responsible for the accessibility of third-party content or to other sites we link to.

This includes:

  • YouTube videos
  • Sound Cloud audio files
  • Google maps

We will provide an accessible alternative to any third-party content that isn’t compliant.


Third party platforms

We often create content which is hosted on third party platforms. This includes:

  • content we create for social media
  • video which we host on YouTube, SoundCloud or Vimeo
  • data we supply to national databases

We are responsible for ensuring the content we supply meets accessibility requirements; however, we are not responsible for the accessibility of the platform itself.

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 November 2021, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

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.

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

Video and audio content

This site has pre-recorded audio and video content that was published before 23 September 2020, which is exempt from the accessibility regulations.

Archived content

This site contains archived content, which is exempt from the accessibility regulations. The archived content is all internal announcements and external news stories published prior to 23 September 2018, but which have not since been updated.