Non compliance with the accessibility regulations
Issues with navigation and operability
- Not all content - particularly mega style menus - can be navigated by keyboard (WCAG 2.1.1)
We’re working with our developers to implement a fix for this over the coming months.
- Focus states are not always clear when using a keyboard to move through site (WCAG 2.1 2.4.7)
We’re working with our developers to implement a fix for this over the coming months.
- Some of our search inputs aren’t labelled appropriately, which may make them harder for accessibility tools to understand (WCAG 2.1 3.3.2)
We are working to ensure that every input has appropriate labelling.
- There is inconsistency on our sites around the use of ARIA tags and HTML5 labels to help accessibility tools navigate our pages (WCAG 2.1 1.3.1)
We are working with our developers to ensure that these are implemented correctly on our sites.
- Interactive carousels cannot currently be paused (WCAG 2.1 2.2.2)
We’re working with our developers to implement a fix for this over the coming months.
We plan to fix these issues by September 2020.
Issues with text, including hyperlinks, descriptions, labels, web pages
- Some link text doesn’t make sense when read on its own (for example, ‘click here’) (WCAG 2.1 2.4.4 and 2.4.9)
We use a quality assurance tool that helps us to check for poor link text, and will use this and manual checks to improve the quality of link text across the site as soon as possible.
- Link text is not always identified in ways other than colour (WCAG 2.1 1.4.1)
We are working with our developers to consider link style options that will provide greater clarity and will implement changes in the coming months.
- Some iFrames are missing advisory titles, which may make them harder for accessibility tools to understand (WCAG 2.1 4.1.2)
We are working with our content editors to ensure that these are implemented correctly on our sites.
- Some tables do not have meaningful descriptions, which may make them harder for accessibility tools to understand (WCAG 2.1 1.3.1)
We are working with our content editors to ensure that these are implemented correctly on our sites.
We plan to fix these issues by September 2020.
Issues with images, video and audio
- Not all video has captions, text or audio description (WCAG 2.1 1.2)
We will work to develop audio or textual alternatives to these instances on our sites and to label them where appropriate.
- Not all images have meaningful text alternatives (WCAG 2.1 1.1.1)
We are working with our content editors to ensure that these are implemented correctly on our sites.
We plan to fix these issues by September 2020.
Issues with documents, including Word files, PowerPoints, PDFs
Many of our older documents don’t meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be marked up so that they’re accessible to a screen reader (WCAG 2.1 4.1.2).
We are currently exploring options that enable you to access documents in alternative formats. We aim to replace these with accessible formats as they come up for review. Any new documents we publish will meet accessibility standards. The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
Third party content
Our sites 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.
Where we are legally required to feature third party content or functionality, we cannot reasonably accept responsibility for ensuring it meets accessibility standards. However, where it is within our control, we will make every reasonable effort to work towards meeting accessibility requirements.
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 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.
Live video
Live video streams are used minimally on our sites and do not have captions (WCAG 2.1 1.2.4). However, we do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.
