Accessibility statement

This is the accessibility statement for the Eastleigh Borough Council website, run by Eastleigh Borough Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website.

The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No.2) Accessibility Regulations set out the standards public sector bodies must attain. This accessibility statement sets out how Eastleigh Borough Council meets its obligations. It also explains what type of web content is exempt from the requirements.

We will update this statement as and when we make improvements to the accessibility of this website.

To make sure that our website and applications are accessible, we follow the Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1. WCAG is a universally accepted standard for measuring the accessibility of a website or app. It uses a scale of A, AA and AAA to rate the accessibility of content.

Eastleigh Borough Council is committed to making sure, where possible, that its content meets AA compliance. AA compliance means people who have a disability should be able to access the majority of our content easily. 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 speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver).

We’re also making the website text as simple as possible to understand. AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Eastleigh Borough 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 (WCAG) 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliance listed below:

Website
We know that some parts of our website are not accessible, for example:

  • navigating using just a keyboard can be difficult
  • most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • some live video streams don’t have captions
  • interactive tools and transactions
  • some of our interactive forms are difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, because some form controls are missing a ‘label’ tag
  • our forms are built and hosted through third party software and ‘skinned’ to look like our website. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (information and relationships)
  • some historic PDFs on the website do not provide sufficient alt text. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). It may not be possible to view such PDFs using a screen reader. Any new PDFs we publish will meet accessibility standards
  • some historic council meeting minutes. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content)

  • the council tax enquiry form does not meet the WCAG 2.1 standard in that;
    o fields don't have a focus state (text and textbox for example)
    o keyboard instructions provided on the form are inoperational
    o the white text on green buttons found on the form (and anywhere
       else that uses this convention) do not pass contrast requirements
    o the form denotes required fields with an asterix that is an image,
       which may cause some usability issues with screen readers.

Content that’s non-accessible, and that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

  • PDFs: The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.
  • Captions and transcripts for time-based media: Pre-recorded videos published before 23 September 2020 may not include captions or transcripts. Live streams will not be captioned.
  • Third party content published on our website may not meet accessibility standards.
  • Maps: Embedded maps may not be accessible.

How we test this website

This website is crawled and tested by our automated monitoring system every seven days.

The Team perform internal testing frequently and act upon user feedback when we receive it.

What to do if you can’t access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you as soon as possible.

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, or if you are having a specific problem with a part of this website, please let us know.


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. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, you may contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) at FREEPOST EASS HELPLINE FPN6521 or phone 0808 800 0082.

Statement published 23 September 2020