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Known issues

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

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

Issues with video, images and audio

Video

  • Not all video content has a transcript, making the content inaccessible to users who cannot see. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.1. 

All video content will have a transcript by October 2021. 

  • Not all video content has captions that are synchronised to the audio content of the video, making them inaccessible to people who cannot hear. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2.  

All video and audio content will have captions by October 2021.   

  • Some video or animation content may contain content that flicks. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.3.1. 

All video content that flicks will be removed or replaced with compliant content by October 2021. 

 

Images 

  • Some images do not have a meaningful text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1. 

By October 2021, all images will have meaningful text alternative. Purely decorative images will have blank alt text and infographics and charts will have a link to a full description of the content. 

  • Some images include text as part of the image, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.5. 

By October 2021, all images containing text will have a suitable text alternative to include the image text.  

 

Issue with navigation, structure, links and keyboard operability 

Navigation:

  • Not all forms have labels indicating the purpose of the field that they relate to, which can result in people with reading difficulties having problems understanding the purpose of the content and users of screen readers being unable to easily navigate the form.  

We are working with our developers to implement fixes for these navigation issues over the coming months. 

 

Structure: 

  • Not all headings are hierarchical, making the site more difficult for users of assistive technology such as screen readers to access. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1.  

We are working with our developers to implement fixes for these structural issues over the coming months. 

  • Heading have on occasion been used to highlight information rather than for headings, making the site more difficult for users of assistive technology to use. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.3.1 and 2.4.6. 

All text that uses a heading to highlight information but does not serve as a heading will be fixed by October 2021. 

Links: 

  • Some links do not use text that is meaningful out of context, which can result in users of screen readers not being able to understand the link without reading the surrounding text and users of speech recognition software being less able to target links accurately using voice commands. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4.  

All links will be reviewed and fixed by October 2021 

  • Some links to external sites open in a new browser window while some open in the same browser window making the site behaviour unpredictable, which can result in the site being less accessible for people with some cognitive disabilities and people who use screen readers. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.2.2. 

All links to external websites will be reviewed and will open in a new browser window by September 2021.

  • The colour of the link text does not meet the minimum contrast requirements against the background. This can limit the site’s accessibility for people with low vision, poor eyesight or colour blindness. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion on 1.4.3.

We are working with our developers to fix the link text colour and increase the contrast. This will be done over the coming months

Keyboard operability: 

  • Carousels do not have obvious controls for users to stop the auto-rotate, which can cause people with cognitive disability that affect focus and concentration to be distracted making the site less accessible. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.2.2. 
  • Some menus, links, buttons, and other controls cannot be operated using the keyboard alone, which can cause problems for people who are blind, have low vision and/or hand tremors. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1. 

We are working with our developers to implement fixes for these keyboard operability issues over the coming months. 

Issues with contrast, use of colour and visual characteristics  

  • Some elements have low contrast levels (e.g. links), which can result in text being difficult to read, especially for people with low vision, poor eyesight or colour blindness. This fails the WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.4.3. 

We are working with our developers to implement a fix for this issue over the coming months.  

  • Some pages use visual characteristics (shape, size, colour or location) to communicate instructions, which means that users who are unable to see or recognise information communicated using sensory characteristics are unable to perceive that information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.3.  

All pages with be reviewed and fixed by October 2021. 

Issues with language and content 

  • The line height, spacing between paragraphs and letter and word spacing cannot be changed without loss of content or functionality. This means that people with low vision, dyslexia or cognitive disabilities may struggle to read the text, or lose content or functionality if  

We are working with our developers to implement fixes for these issues over the coming months.   

Issues with documents, including Word files, PowerPoints, PDFs 

  • Many of the documents (Word and PDF) on this site do not meet accessibility standards, which could result in them not being fully accessible to users of screen readers.  

Documents that are essential to the service we provide will be either converted to HTML pages or replaced with accessible versions by October 2021.  

Issues with Content Management System (CMS)

  • The CMS code is being checked to ensure that it meets the robust accessibility criteria 4.1.1, 4.1.2 & 4.1.3. 

This will be done as part of an accessibility upgrade of the Haiku Content Management System to be completed in Autumn 2020. 

Disproportionate burden

We do not consider any of the accessibility issues to be a disproportionate burden and aim to make the site fully compliant by September 2021.

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

Third-party content

Our site includes third party content and functionality. This may direct you to a related service, link to another site or supporting documentation. We are not responsible for the accessibility of third-party content or to other sites we link to.

This includes:

  • Vimeo videos
  • Google maps

We will provide an accessible alternative to any third-party content that isn’t compliant.

Third party platforms

We often create content which is hosted on third party platforms. This includes:

  • content we create for social media
  • video which we host on Vimeo
  • data we supply to national databases

We are responsible for ensuring the content we supply meets accessibility requirements; however, we are not responsible for the accessibility of the platform itself.

PDFs and other documents

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 September 2021, 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 accessibility standards.

Video and audio content

This site has pre-recorded video content that was published before 23 September 2020, which is exempt from the accessibility regulations.

Archived content

This site contains archived content, which is exempt from the accessibility regulations. The archived content is all internal announcements and external news stories published prior to 23 September 2018, but which have not since been updated.