Accessibility statement

Accessibility statement for Cambridgeshire.gov.uk

This website is run by Cambridgeshire County Council. It is designed to be used by as many people as possible. The text should be clear and simple to understand. You should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 400% 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)

How accessible this website is

Parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

  • Some document attachments (see Accessible document policy further down the page)
  • Some coding needs improvement

Feedback and contact information

If you need information in a different format, like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please contact us and tell us:

  • the web address (URL) of the page content
  • your name and email address
  • the format you need, for example, audio CD, braille, BSL or large print, accessible PDF

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or you think we’re not meeting the accessibility requirements, please contact us.

Enforcement procedure

If you contact us with a complaint and you’re not happy with our response contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

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’).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Cambridgeshire County Council is committed to making its websites 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.

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:

  • Some document attachments are not fully accessible
  • Some coded elements need improving

Non-accessible content

The content that is not accessible is outlined below with details of:

  • where it fails the success criteria
  • planned dates for when issues will be fixed

Some document attachments are not fully accessible
This is explained in more detail in our accessible document policy further down this page.

Element IDs are not unique
WCAG 2.1: Understanding Success Criterion 4.1.1: Parsing

This comes from the key info box styling on the page effecting 30 pages - This has been reported to our developer 30-09-2022 we hope to resolve this within four weeks.

Empty headings

WCAG 2.1: Understanding Success Criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships

This appears to be a false positive, regarding a heading that does not exist within the content - This has been reported to our developer 30-09-2022 we hope to resolve this within four weeks.

Third party systems

The council uses the systems listed below that are supplied by other organisations to provide access to services online through the council website.

Some areas of these third party systems are not fully accessible, we are working with the suppliers to improve the accessibility of these systems. If you have a problem accessing any third party systems please contact us

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

  • Third party content that the council has not paid for or developed - for example, social media 'like' buttons or PDF documents
  • Live audio and video
  • Maps 
  • Archives and historical information

How we tested this website

This website was and is currently being tested for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1 level A and level AA, and these tests have been carried out internally. For the ongoing monitoring of accessibility issues with our web content we use Siteimprove. For detailed investigations and coding issues we use google dev tools and lighthouse, in consultation with our website developers.

This website has also been assessed by Shaw Trust Accessibility Services, and we are working towards receiving Shaw Trust Web Accreditation.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Accessibility improvements are carried out on a daily basis. We plan to identify and fix issues according to the timescales shown for each area above. The majority of issues that can crop up are fixed as they are discovered. Any issues requiring investigation or known longer term fix will be recorded in the section above ' Non-accessible content' and the timescales indicated.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 7 November 2019.
It was last reviewed on 30 September 2022.

This website is monitored on a monthly basis. Tests are carried out by our in-house web team. We use Siteimprove software to report accessibility issues.

Accessible documents policy

This policy explains how accessible the documents on the council website are. It covers PDFs, spreadsheets, presentations and other types of document.

Using our documents

The council publishes documents in a range of formats, including PDFs and spreadsheets.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use those documents. For example, when we produce a document we make sure to:

  • provide an HTML option where possible
  • tag headings and other parts of the document properly, so screen readers can understand the page structure
  • make sure we include alt text alongside non-decorative images, so people who cannot see them understand what they’re there for
  • avoid using tables, except when we’re presenting data
  • write in plain English

How accessible our documents are

New documents we publish and documents you need to download should be fully accessible.

However, we know that some of our older documents are not accessible. For example, some of them:

  • are just photocopies and are not marked up in a way that allows screen reader users to understand them
  • are not tagged up properly - for example, they do not contain proper headings and complex tables may be an issue
  • are not written in plain English

This mostly applies to our policy documents. These types of documents are exempt from the regulations, so we do not currently have any plans to make them accessible.

But if you need to access information in one of these document types, you can contact us and ask for an alternative format.

Reporting accessibility problems with one of our documents

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of our documents. If you find any problems not listed on this page or you think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements contact us.

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 the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about the accessibility of our documents

The council is committed to making our documents accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

The documents the council publishes are partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Making documents available in other languages

We do not provide documents translated into other languages on our website. If you would like request a document in another language, please contact us and a translated version of a document may be provided where possible.

Non accessible content

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

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

The majority of our older PDFs have one to three of the possible issues below

  • The image has no alternative presentation
  • The document is not tagged
  • The document is missing a language definition
  • The document contains no headings
  • The table has no table headings
  • The document has no bookmarks
  • The heading structure is incorrect
  • The form element does not have a label explicitly connected
  • The document is not machine readable

From April 2022 we are now reviewing all our older PDFs and seek to make them accessible or convert the content to HTML or remove them. We have a dedicated role (April 2022 to April 2023) retrospectively reviewing all documents that have one or more accessibility issues and fixing these. In May 2022 we had 1660 documents to review. From September 2022 this is now down to 1247 documents.

From May 2022 any new PDFs we publish to the website will meet accessibility standards.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

  • We have some third party documents uploaded on our website, these are often not part of our service delivery and often promotional materials, signposting and further information materials.

From May 2022 we are introducing a stricter inclusion policy for third party materials, we seek to link to the third party website rather than having their documents on our website.

These older documents are now included as part of the review above. 

This policy was last updated on 30 September 2022.