Accessibility

This accessibility statement covers the North Somerset Safeguarding Children Partnership website.

This website is run by North Somerset Council. 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 most of 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:

• some PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software - this includes documents on both the main website, and in password-protected areas

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, email or call our Digital Team.

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in five 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, email us on digitalteam@n-somerset.gov.uk.

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).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We provide a text relay service for people who are deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

Our offices have audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit, we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

North Somerset 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 and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations:

• ensure links are distinguished by more than just colour WCAG A 1.4.1

PDFs

Some PDFs added to our website after September 2020 are not fully accessible as we have not yet had the resources to update them.

We will be going through these PDFs gradually to bring them up to WCAG 2.1 AA standards. We are aiming to have them all up to the correct standard by December 2021.

Disproportionate burden

Not applicable on this website.

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

Older PDFs and other documents

Some of our older PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. 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. For example, we do not plan to fix old meeting minutes and agendas.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have included our disability officer and users who rely on assistive technology to help us improve the accessibility of the website on a regular basis.

Our content is continually reviewed and written to a set of standards that promote the use of plain English.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on Tuesday 8 June 2021.

This website was last tested on Tuesday 8 June 2021. The web content team used a sample of pages that included the ‘top 10 customer tasks’ based on web metrics data from Google Analytics.

We tested:

• clear and concise writing, including easy to understand instructions
• headings and page titles were descriptive and in semantic order
• all text link is meaningful
• if icons are used, they are accompanied by text
• meaningful alt text on images