Accessibility Statement

Using this website

This website is run by Ruyton XI Towns Parish Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. 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 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)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

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

How accessible this website is

Our website is built using WordPress and an underlying accessible theme. However we know that some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible, for example:

  • you can’t modify the line height or spacing of text
  • most older PDF documents aren’t fully accessible to screen reader software
  • some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
  • Annual returns (AGARs) are scanned PDFs of paper documents so will not be accessible.

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

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF or large print:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in within 7 days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

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 the requirements of the accessibility regulations, contact: the Parish Clerk by email or by phone 01743 719012

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS)

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Ruyton XI Town’s Parish 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, due to the non-compliances listed below

Issues with technology

  • Empty button – a button on screen has no text to describe what it is for. Wherever this occurs a change will be made to add descriptive text.
  • Empty link – a link on a page has no text to describe what it is for. Wherever this occurs a change will be made to add descriptive text, or to remove any redundant links.
  • Redundant link – Adjacent links go to the same URL. This results in additional navigation and repetition for keyboard only (no mouse) and screen reader users. These links will be identified and the problems resolved.

Issues with text

  • The calendar module displays events with the date in a box alongside. The date itself is in small text which is acceptable for people without accessibility issues but likely be difficult to read for those with low vision. Tests will be carried out to see if the CSS style sheet for the module can be adapted successfully.
  • Skipped heading level – typically website headings are classified as h1, h2, h3, etc. They help to give structure to web pages but also indicate hierarchy to screen reading tools. This alert indicates that one or more heading levels have been skipped which could be confusing to the tool and to the user.  The web pages with these problems will be identified and the the heading levels changed where appropriate to correct the hierarchical structure.
  • Suspicious link text – This indicates that a link says something like ‘click here’. This does not give enough information to a user who may not be able to see it in context. The link text will be changed to be more meaningful.

Issues with PDFs

  • The agendas, minutes, policy documents and financial documents are all stored as PDFs on the website. These PDF documents may not have been designed with accessibility in mind. Additionally the use of a separate application to read the documents may cause confusion and navigation difficulties. We will seek advice from other government bodies on how best to resolve these issues, perhaps by identifying a different way of publishing the parish council documents.

Issues with images

  • Redundant title text – in some instances the same text is being used to describe the image as is being used for the alternative text. This can cause confusion for users of screen readers. All such images will be identified and the two text elements will be changed so that they are different and make sense.

Issues with interactive tools

  • Missing form label – the contact forms do not have associated text labels. Users with accessibility issues may not be able to recognise what the form is for. Each of the contact forms will be amended to add descriptive text.

How we tested this website

This website was last tested on 1 May 2019. The test was carried out by one of our councillors David Shearan who built and maintains our website. The initial testing was carried out using the WAVE accessibility tool. WAVE is an extension for Firefox that allows the tester to evaluate web content for accessibility issues directly within the browser.

The initial testing exposed issues identified as either errors (because of their serious nature) or alerts (warnings about issues considered to be less serious).

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

  • All of the issues described above will be assessed and, if possible, fixed according to the following plan.
  • The plan is being updated when each issue is assessed and any changes made.
  • The WAVE tool will be used after an issue has been fixed to demonstrate that it is no longer present.

Accessibility Plan

  • October 2019 – Skipped heading level
    23/10/2019 – All pages were reviewed to identify skipped heading levels. This occurred in three situations;
    1) The sidebar widget headings are all H4 and these appear on every page except the Local Information/Police page – this is actually good practice according to WordPress because it ensures that they appear at a lower heading level than any headings used in the content – No changes made
    2) The ‘Stay in Touch’ text in the footer was using heading level H5 and this only appeared as an issue on the Local Information/Police page – The heading level was removed, ordinary body text used instead
    3) On the Planning page all planning applications used heading level H3 – Change to the Pods template to use H2 instead of H3, changed H2 typography to reduce point size
  • October 2019 – Suspicious link text
    23/10/19 – The only two occurrences of this issue were in a news item and in a widget on the Planning page
    In both instances the link text was replaced with something more descriptive
  • November 2019 – Calendar module using very small text
    24/11/19 – Changed CSS to increase font size of month and day
  • November 2019 – Empty button
    24/11/19 – This error was caused by the search option on desktop and mobile menus. Determined that there was no real need for a search option so disabled it in the theme customisation.
  • November 2019 – Empty link
    24/11/19 – Above every news item on the home page there was an invisible section with an empty link – this was being created by the Content Views plugin and was removed using an option in the plugin to disable thumbnails.
    This leaves a single empty link which appears at the bottom of the page, probably related to the mobile menu. There doesn’t appear to be any way of removing this
  • November 2019 – Redundant link
    24/11/19 – There were two types of redundant links. The first was that the site title and the ‘Home’ option on the menu both linked to the site URL. Altered the ‘Home’ item on the menu so that it linked to siteURL/home. All other redundant links were in the calendar widget for upcoming events. the date box and the event box both linked to the same destination. It wasn’t possible to alter this in settings so a support request has been submitted via the WordPress support forum.
  • December 2019 – Redundant title text
  • December 2019 – Missing form label
  • December 2019 – Issues with PDFs
  • 27/2/20 NOTE: Above three items not worked on – aim is now to deal with them during March 2020