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Est.1840

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

The following issues are raised through our accessibility tracking system. They are listed together with the relevant WCAG 2.2 A and AA success criteria the problem fails on and, where applicable, our planned approach to resolving them.

PDFs and other documents

  • Some PDFs do not follow a logical order (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.2)
  • Some PDFs do not contain headings (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.1)
  • Some PDFs do not contain tags (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.1)
  • Some PDFs do not have a title (WCAG 2.2 A 2.4.2)
  • Some long PDFs do not use bookmarks to aid navigation (WCAG 2.2 AA 2.4.5)
  • The first heading in a PDF is not always an H1 (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.1)
  • Some PDF content might not be in a meaningful sequence (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.2)
  • Some PDFs might not have sufficient text contrast (WCAG 2.2 AA 1.4.3)

Response: 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. For example, we do not plan to fix PDFs of Minutes of meetings published before September 2018.

We are continuing to review our PDFs and, where possible, convert content into accessible web pages. Our priority is to remediate documents that are essential to providing services, information or transactions. We also keep exceptions under review, including content that may fall outside the scope of the accessibility regulations.

We are implementing pdf accessibility training for staff to ensure that any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards. Our “always-on” accessibility tracking will help to highlight any that are uploaded in real time so they can be amended quickly. We are investigating the use of an agency to make complex PDFs such as our annual accounts accessible.

Information and relationships between parts of a page are easy to understand

  • Some headings do not include text (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.1)
  • Some pages do not contain a top-level heading (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.1)
  • Some lists or groups of links are not written semantically (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.1)
  • Some HTML is not in a meaningful sequence (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.2)

Response: We will continue to work through fixes in priority order based on their impact on users. Issues identified through audit and ongoing monitoring are tracked and reviewed regularly as part of our continuous improvement approach to accessibility.

Make sure text is a colour which makes it easy to read 

The text on a website should be easy to read for anyone with impaired vision. You may find:

  • Text does not have sufficient contrast (WCAG 2.2 AA 1.4.3)

The majority of these issues occur on our forms and are considered separately under disproportionate burden. Where contrast issues are identified on webpages, we will address them through our ongoing accessibility improvement work.

Issues with navigation

We want our site to be navigable by everyone, but there are still three elements which need to be updated. These are:

  • Some links do not explain their purpose (WCAG 2.2 A 2.4.4)
  • Pages use the same link text for different destinations (WCAG 2.2 A 2.4.4)
  • The individual menu navigation links along the top of the webpage (Study/Clearing/Visit) has an attribute that is not allowed: ARIA attribute is not allowed: aria-expanded="false" (WCAG 4.1.2)

We are reviewing link purpose and navigation issues through our accessibility monitoring and remediation process, and will prioritise changes based on user impact and service criticality.

Issues with assistive technology understanding our site

We've made a lot of improvements to the way our site works with assistive technology, but two issues remain:

  • Some site elements contain duplicate IDs which can prevent names, relationships or labels from being conveyed correctly (WCAG 2.2 A 4.1.2)
  • Some lists are not marked up correctly (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.1)
  • Some tables are not fully marked up correctly (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.1)

We are addressing these issues as part of our ongoing technical remediation work and accessibility quality assurance.

Issues with our forms (disproportionate burden)

We know the forms on our website aren’t as accessible as we’d like them to be but have identified correcting the issues as a disproportionate burden in our accessibility statement. These are the current issues:

  • Some fieldsets do not contain a legend (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.1)
  • Some items with the same name inside a fieldset are not wrapped correctly (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.1)
  • Some form controls do not have labels (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.1)
  • Some labels in the document fragment do not point to valid IDs (WCAG 2.2 A 1.3.1)
  • The purposes of some form fields are not identified programmatically (WCAG 2.2 AA 1.3.5)
  • Some of our form pages require zooming and two-dimensional scrolling on small screens (WCAG 2.2 AA 1.4.10)
  • Some form controls do not contrast sufficiently with their surroundings (WCAG 2.2 AA 1.4.11)
  • Our forms do not allow users to quickly skip to content (WCAG 2.2 A 2.4.1)
  • The frames our forms sit in do not specify a title (WCAG 2.2 A 2.4.1)
  • The custom tabbing order does not always make sense (WCAG 2.2 A 2.4.3)
  • Some controls do not change appearance when they are selected (WCAG 2.2 AA 2.4.7)
  • The language of our form pages is not specified (WCAG 2.2 A 3.1.1)
  • Some links on our forms may not be usable by screen readers (WCAG 2.2 A 4.1.2)
  • Text does not have sufficient contrast (WCAG 2.2 AA 1.4.3)