Accessibility
The Breckland Council website has a number of accessibility features, to access them please click on the link below, and this will open the Accessibility toolbar
Accessibility Statement
This accessibility statement applies to https://www.breckland.gov.uk/
This website is run by Breckland District 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 per cent 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 tried to make 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?
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
- Some PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- There is labelling issue with the search box
Feedback and contact information
If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF or large print:
- Email: web.team@breckland.gov.uk
- Call: 01362 656870
Once received, we will endeavour to send you an accessible version.
Reporting accessibility problems with this website
We're always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we're not meeting accessibility requirements, complete ourWebsite Feedback Form.
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 theEquality Advisory and Support Service (opens new window).
Technical information about this website's accessibility
Breckland District Council is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Compliance status
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to 'the non-compliances' listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons:
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations:
| Issue | Success Criteria Failed | Location |
|---|---|---|
Identify the purpose of fields programmatically | WCAG AA 1.3.5 | To comply with WCAG 2.1, fields must identify what their purpose is programmatically. If done correctly, this allows browsers to help users fill in forms with known information, such as their name and email address. Not all fields within our forms have autocomplete set. We are working through forms to include autocomplete where necessary. |
We plan to fix these issues by July 2023 by upgrading to the latest version of our web platform and associated templates. We will be reliant on our website providers (Goss) to fix and/or deploy any changes.
Issues with PDFs and other documents
Many of our PDFs and Word documents don't meet accessibility standards for the following reasons:
| Issue | Success Criteria Failed | Location |
|---|---|---|
Ensure PDFs are machine readable | WCAG A 1.1.1 | A number of PDFs are not machine readable. |
Specify headings for every PDF | WCAG A 1.3.1 | A number of PDFs do not specify a heading. |
Fix untagged PDFs | WCAG A 1.3.1 | A number of PDFs are untagged. |
Define a title for all PDFs | WCAG A 2.4.2 | A number of PDFs do not specify the document title using the Title entry in the document information dictionary. |
Ensure PDFs specify a default language | WCAG A 3.1.1 | A number of PDFs specify a default language. |
From September 2020 onwards, all new published documents will meet accessibility standards.
If you are unable to access any PDF on this site, please email the title of PDF to web.team@breckland.gov.uk and we will endeavour to send an accessible one.
Third Party Software
Our website contains third party content. We do not have control over and are not responsible for the accessibility of this content. This may include:
- Modern.Gov - We have worked on fixing the styling accessibility issues of the Modern.Gov product as these are within our gift.
- Capita Payments - We are working with Capita to fix the accessibility issues of the payment templates as these are within our gift.
- Breckland Chat Bot - We are working with Ubisend to fix the accessibility issues of the chat bot product.
- Alexa Skills - We have partnered with Ubisend to develop an Alexa Skill that provides users with voice-enabled access to some of our services. We welcome user feedback to help us improve the Skill's accessibility further. Visit theAmazon accessibility page (opens new window) to find ways to help you use your Alexa, including information on how to enable accessibility features and connect with support resources.
There are known issues with some elements of these third-party pieces of software. We have been liaising with the suppliers to ensure they are as accessible as possible. These will be reviewed at the end of each contract and form part of our procurement process.
Disproportionate burden
This section covers issues that we cannot fix right now. We've assessed the cost of fixing these issues but believe that doing so would be adisproportionate burden (opens new window) within the meaning of the law.
We don't categorise any of the accessibility issues onwww.breckland.gov.uk as a disproportionate burden to fix within the meaning of the regulations, with the exception of PDFs and other documents.
Having carried out a detailed check ofwww.breckland.gov.uk we've assessed that it would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the No. 2 Regulations to fix all documents published onwww.breckland.gov.uk since 23 September 2018.
As of 10 August 2020 there were 262 PDFS onwww.breckland.gov.uk published since 23 September 2018 (within scope of the No. 2 Regulations). This does not include any document published to our Modern.Gov or Ocella Planning systems.
The majority of these documents have not been viewed by a member of the public or have received very few views. Therefore, they are not negatively impacting users with disabilities or impairments. For this reason, we don't believe the cost of time, effort and resource to fix all the documents is justified.
Where the PDF is provided by a third-party, we will make every effort to make it accessible. There are examples, such as Energy Performance Certificates provided by Central Government, that do not pass accessibility checks. This is because they are security protected, and as such we are unable to resolve any issues.
Cost of fixing documents
It would be very difficult to know how long it would take to make every document accessible without first reviewing each one. To try and ascertain how large an undertaking this would be, we have completed a representative sample of PDFs and recorded how long it took to make them accessible. Due to the nature of the documents it took approximately three hours to make each document accessible.
Using this figure, if it took approximately three hours to review and fix each document within scope, fixing all 262 would take approximately 109 working days at a cost of approximately £9,825 in staff costs.
Assessment of costs and benefits
- We believe that the costs of fixing all documents currently on breckland.gov.uk would be a disproportionate burden on our organisation.
- We believe the benefit to users of assigning staff to fix all current documents on breckland.gov.uk would not be justified and would impose a disproportionate burden on our organisation.
- We believe that users will benefit most from us focusing our available resources on fixing the most used documents onwww.breckland.gov.uk. We will make new documents accessible where they are required for essential services or used by people with disabilities.
We will continue to focus on fixing the most used PDFs, ensure any new document is accessible and have put in place a mechanism to ensure anyone can request and accessible copy of a document on our website.
Content that's not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
If non-essential to our services, the accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs, or other documents on intranets or extranets, published before 23 September 2018
Any new PDFs or Word documents we create will meet accessibility standards.
Online maps and mapping services are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. From 23 September 2020 we'll ensure that where maps are intended for navigational use essential information is provided in an accessible digital manner.
What we're doing to improve accessibility
We have monitoring in place to review the accessibility of the site on an ongoing basis. We use this monitoring to identify and fix any new issues that arise.
The accessibility of the website is reviewed every month by us and we fix any issues arising based on the results from our monitoring software.
Web Editors are being trained to create accessible content.
Approvals have been brought back to one central team to be reviewed before being published
The ability to upload PDFs and other documents has been revoked. All documents now go through one central team to be reviewed before being uploaded to our website.
A series of templates have been made to tackle the creation of regular PDFs.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 10/06/2020. It was last reviewed on 22/02/2023.
Last updated: 04/09/2023 07:05:17