Accessibility policy

Using this website

This accessibility policy applies to the Colchester City Council website located at colchester.gov.uk

Colchester City Council is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of ability or technology.

Policy intention

The intention of this policy is to state clear accessibility principles that this website should follow.

We are in the process of ensuring its pages comply with the AA standard of the W3C version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Web accessibility aims to make web text, images, forms and navigation accessible and understandable for everyone. For example, this 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)

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible is this website

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible. We are working to resolve these issues and ensure no user is disadvantaged.

We will make reasonable adjustments to meet specific individual needs.

Disproportionate burden assessments

Following accessibility regulations, Colchester Council must carry out a disproportionate burden assessment for every PDF published on the website after 23 September 2018.

Each disproportionate burden assessment states how the negative impact (on an organisation) of making a document accessible far outweighs what would be a very small or non-existent benefit to users.

Disproportionate burden assessments

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:

Email: onlineteam@colchester.gov.uk

We will consider your request and get back to you in 5 days.

Non-accessible content

Through internal testing, we have identified accessibility issues that are within our control and we are actively working to resolve them.

A number of accessibility problems have been identified with the web templates used on colchester.gov.uk. These problems include, but are not limited to:

• Difficulty in navigating through content in a hierarchial manner using a keyboard.
• Incorrect colour contrasting.

All web templates have been redesigned, rebuilt, and tested against accessibility compliance.

All content is now being moved to these accessible templates that will allow the content to be navigated. We plan to have all content moved across by September 2022.

The layout, structure and text content of online forms are being reviewed and redesigned to make them accessible. We plan to have all online forms updated to be more usable and accessible by January 2023.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

WCAG 2.4.2 Page Titled

Some documents do not have a descriptive page title, meaning that users may have difficulty in finding and identifying the content. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.2 (Page Titled).

We are currently discussing a resolution with a supplier and plan to have a fix in place by June 2022.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Colchester 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.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

Whilst we strive to adhere to the accepted guidelines and standards for accessibility and usability, it is not always possible to do so in all parts of the website.

PDFs and other documents published before 23 September 2018

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they are not essential to providing our services.

We provide further guidance describing which document types we publish and what users should be able to do with them.

Using our documents

Live video

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

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).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

If you are visiting us, we have induction loops in the following office locations:

Rowan House	G3	Induction loop
Town Hall	Council Chamber	Induction loop
Town Hall	Moot Hall	Induction loop
Town Hall	Grand Jury Room	Infrared
Town Hall	North Committee Room	Infrared
Town Hall	Mayors Parlour	Infrared
Town Hall	West Committee Room	Infrared

Telephone translation services are available to staff and customers 24 hours a day, 365 days per year in over 200 different languages. Language Line Solutions Ltd is the chosen partner to provide our telephone translation services.

Preparation of this accessibility policy

This statement was prepared on 07 January 2020. It was last reviewed on 10 January 2022.

This website was last tested on 04 Jun 2020. The test was carried out internally at Colchester City Council by the Online Team.

The approach used to testing was:

• Audit all existing web templates for compliance.
• Score/rank web templates against compliance and scale of use across colchester.gov.uk.
• On each template, decide whether to update and improve, or redesign and rebuild the web template.
• After improvements were made, retest each template for compliance.

The full accessibility testing reports are available upon request. Requests can be made to onlineteam@colchester.gov.uk.