We want all our site visitors to enjoy their experience interacting with our services. To that end we aim to adhere to the standards set out in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). These guidelines help website owners to ensure their content is accessible to a variety of users, including those with learning difficulties, the visually impaired, mobility impaired, and deaf.

The guidelines have three levels of accessibility (A, AA and AAA). We’ve chosen Level AA as the target for this website.

Our approach

We are working hard to achieve our goal of Level AA accessibility, but we realise there are still some areas that need improvement. The following information explains how we intend to achieve our target compliance level:

  1. Clear targets

    Our accessibility statement declares our target of AA compliance, and we actively manage tasks that move us towards that goal.

  2. Compliance review

    As part of our development processes we have an ongoing task to review our website's compliance level and perform any remedial activities where we fail to achieve our goals. These activities extend beyond compliance to the WCAG standard into iterative processes for developing new accessibility features, listening to feedback, and deploying incremental improvements to our services.

  3. Customer feedback

    We regularly review customer feedback regarding their experiences using our services. When we identify accessibility-related issues with our site we plan remedial activities and schedule tasks to address the problems. See below for contact information if you would like to provide feedback on your experiences using our website.

  4. Technology selection

    In order to provide accessible services we select technologies and frameworks that support accessiblity, for example leveraging the WAI-ARIA standard when working with dynamic content.

    The content we present on the site is defined using accessibility supported technologies.

Accessible content

In designing our website and services, we have considered the following web content technologies to be accessibility supported:

  1. HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

    • Are supported by users’ assistive technology

      • by the screen reader software Jaws (including aural CSS support)

    • Are supported natively in widely-distributed user agents that are also accessibility supported

      • Internet Explorer 10 and 11, Edge, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Google Chrome (supporting automated updates where available)

      • Based on available web statistics, these browsers constitute at least 99.5% of the web browsers in use on the Internet today

    • User agents supporting HTML, CSS, and Javascript are accessibility supported and are available for download and purchase in a way that does not cost a person with a disability any more than a person without a disability.

      • Most desktop operating systems ship with one or more of these browsers pre-installed

      • The above browsers are freely available from public facing websites

      • The screen reader "Jaws" is available from a public facing website at a cost which is identical for people with or without a disability

  2. Portable Document Format (PDF)

    • Is supported by users’ assistive technology

      • by the screen reader software Jaws

      • by the Adobe Reader software Accessibility preferences and Read Out Loud feature

    • Is supported in a widely-distributed plug-in that is also accessibility supported:

      • Adobe Reader

    • User agents supporting the Adobe Reader plugin are accessibility supported and are available for download and purchase in a way that does not cost a person with a disability any more than a person without a disability.

      • Most operating systems ship with a browser capable of using the Adobe Reader plugin pre-installed, or have an equivalent app on mobile devices

      • The Adobe Reader plugin is freely available from public facing websites

      • The screen reader "Jaws" is available from a public facing website at a cost which is identical for people with or without a disability

  3. Plain text formats (TXT, CSV, TSV)

    • Is supported by users’ assistive technology

      • by the screen reader software Jaws

    • Are supported natively in widely-distributed user agents that are also accessibility supported

      • Internet Explorer 10 and 11, Edge, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Google Chrome (supporting automated updates where available)

      • Based on available web statistics, these browsers constitute at least 99.5% of the web browsers in use on the Internet today

    • User agents supporting plain text formats are accessibility supported and are available for download and purchase in a way that does not cost a person with a disability any more than a person without a disability.

      • Most operating systems ship with a browser capable of displaying plain-text formats pre-installed, or have an equivalent app on mobile devices

      • A plethora of applications for reading plain-text files are freely available from public facing websites

      • The screen reader "Jaws" is available from a public facing website at a cost which is identical for people with or without a disability

Get in touch

If you would like to provide feedback on any part of your experience on this site please get in touch.