Accessibility statement for Ventnor Council
This website is run by Ventnor Town Council.
We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:
- 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 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:
- most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- any instances of live video streams may not have captions
What to do if you cannot access parts of this website
If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:
- email:townclerk@ventnortowncouncil.org.uk
- call: 01983 853775
We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 15 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 that we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, then you can click the Report a Website problem link at the bottom of every page on the site.
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
Ventnor Town 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 compliance with the accessibility regulations
Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
Our PDF documents are currently non-complaint. We aim to make all new PDF documents compliant using Microsoft Word’s accessibility check going forwards. However, not all PDF’s generated from accessible Word Documents are still accessible according to Adobe Acrobat’s own accessibility checks, so this is currently causing an issue. We hope that this issue is resolved by December 2022.
We plan to add text alternatives for all images by December 2022. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
Disproportionate Burden
We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues accessing information. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will revisit this assessment in December 2022.
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. By December 2022, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.
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.
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet Microsoft Word accessibility standards, and eventually the Adobe Acrobat accessibility standards (where possible, see earlier note).
Live & recorded video
Live & recorded video streams that do not have captions will fail 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.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
Issues with PDFs and other documents
We are aware that most of our documents are not accessible. Documents generally do not comply with accessibility requirements, so we are actively working on plans to avoid adding PDFs and documents wherever possible.
Due to the historic volume of documents, we are continuing to work through all the documents that remain on the website.
Where there is no alternative available, any PDF that’s included will be as made accessible as possible.
How we tested this website
This website was last tested on 26h April 2022. The test was carried out by Zonkey Solutions Ltd.
We tested representative templates using ChromeVox screen reader and axe DevTools and WAVE a11y tools.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 26th April 2022. It was last updated on 26th April 2022