Ringstead Parish Council Website Accessibility Statement
We want everyone who uses our website to be able to find, read and understand our content, so we work to achieve and maintain the AA standards of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.
View the site your way
You can change the colours, contrast levels, font styles and magnify the page up to 150% without the text spilling off the screen.
Navigate by headings
Use browser plugins or assistive technology such as screen readers to list the headings and subheadings in the page and go straight to the heading you need.
Navigate by links
Users of assistive technology, such as screen readers, can get a list of all the links on a page and understand their purpose from the link text.
Navigate by keyboard
Users who navigate by keyboard can see the interactive element currently focused on, such as links and form fields, through a highlighted outline.
Skip to content
Use a keyboard to find the skip links and jump directly to the main content on the page.
Listening to content
Use text to speech browser plugins or assistive technology to listen to content you select with the mouse or keyboard. Screen reader users can listen to content, navigate the site and interact with menus.
Using different devices
To make the best use of our website with a range of devices, use the My Computer My Way's guide to using assistive technologies.
Alternative formats
If you need information on this website in a different format such as accessible PDF, large print, or audio recording, please contact us using the details below. We’ll consider your request and get back to you as soon as we can.
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
The 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.
Non-Compliance with Accessibility Regulations
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below:
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the text will not reflow in a single column when you change the size of the browser window
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you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
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some older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
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some finance-related documents are scanned images which cannot be read by a screen reader
PDFs and other documents
Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2.
Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs of meeting minutes and agendas as well as policy and procedure documents. We will gradually replace policy and procedure documents with accessible PDFs or HTML pages.
Disproportionate Burden
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 old copies of meeting minutes. Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will aim to meet accessibility standards.
Contact us
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, or if you’d like to request information in a different format, please contact the parish clerk.
Enforcement
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).
Last updated
This statement was last updated in September 2023. We tested the website using https://wave.webaim.org/ according to WCAG 2.1 AA standards which guide our long term audit and improvement plans, and will next review it in September 2024. The main structural and design elements of the site were found to be WCAG 2.1 AA standard compliant on that date, although some documents linked to the site were not compliant.