Accessibility Statement for Westmorland and Furness Council

This accessibility statement applies to www.westmorlandandfurness.gov.uk

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

We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible. We will update the statement when issues are fixed or when we expect them to be fixed.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

• customerservices@westmorlandandfurness.gov.uk
• 0300 373 3300

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in ten working days.

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, you can let us know by using our web feedback form, which you'll find on every web page. Or you can 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 this website’s accessibility

We are 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 and exemptions listed below:

Non-accessible content

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

We will update the statement when issues are fixed or when we expect them to be fixed.

Non-compliance with accessibility regulations

Content should be written as clearly and as simply as possible. In some areas, content is ‘fairly difficult to read’ based on the Flesch Reading Ease score. This fails Success Criterion 3.1.5. - We aim to continuously review and update all website content. All new content should conform to a ‘standard’ level of reading ease or higher.

Tab doesn't show focus on pins in some maps. This fails W3C Success Criterion 1.4.13 - We are working with our developers and aim to fix this issue by June 2024. This issue was fixed in June 2024.

We have forms in an inaccessible PDF or DOC format. We are working towards converting all forms to an accessible electronic format.

We are aware that not all our online forms are fully accessible. We are working towards developing a plan to assess and tackle this issue.

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

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 (name, role value).

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

The Public Sector Body Accessibility Regulations 2018 do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish should meet accessibility standards.

Live video

Live video streams do not have captions. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.4 (captions, live).

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 01 April 2023. It was last reviewed on  06 February 2024.

We use this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test:

• automated testing, Siteimprove accessibility checker crawls 100% of our web pages weekly
• manual testing, we check a representative sample pages of from the busiest areas of our site and the home page