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Accessibility statement for Great Yarmouth Borough Council's corporate websites: technical information about this website's accessibility

Great Yarmouth Borough 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

The websites included within this accessibility statement are partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1 (opens new window) 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:

Contrast

  • there are a number of instances across the site where the text colour does not have sufficient contrast with its background colour to enable people with visual impairments to read. This fails WCAG 2 Success Criterion 1.4.3: Contrast (Minimum).

Keyboard

  • some elements are missing a role attribute which helps to correctly convey its function. For example, the Safe Spaces logo in the footer of each page does not indicate that this is a modal dialog. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2: Name, Role, Value

Links

  • there are some links that don't clearly state their purpose, or are not described by its link text alone, or by the link text together with preceding page content. This fails WCAG 2 success criterion 2.4.4: Link Purpose (In Context)
  • there are some instances where the same link text has been used for different destinations. This fails WCAG 2 success criterion 2.4.4: Link Purpose (In Context)

Forms

  • some form elements do not have persistent labels present and placeholders are providing the only visual label. For example, the search box at the top of the homepage only shows placeholder text. This fails WCAG success criterion 3.3.2: Labels or instructions
  • there are a number of forms that use one or more input elements which do not change appearance when selected using a keyboard. This issue is specific to the current template used by this website and fails WCAG 2 success criterion 2.4.7: Focus Visible
  • many form fields do not currently identify their purpose in a programmatic way. This functionality allows browsers and password managers to aid users by automatically populating form fields with the correct information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.5: Identify Input Purpose.  This capability was released by the supplier on 7 October 2021 (see item PTICM-8676 in Update 900 Release Notes (opens new window)) and deployed into our production environment on 27 October 2021. We are currently in the process of reviewing all of our web forms to remediate accessibilty issues and will implement this functionality as a part of this review. All new forms which are created from 7 October 2021 onwards will include support upon creation.
  • some forms which implement CAPTCHA functionality include labels with a 'for' attribute that does not relate to a labellable control used within the form. This fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships.
  • some form controls do not define explicit text labels to make these accessible to people using screen readers. This fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships.
  • some form fields do not have a useful accessible name or description. For example, the search button and text box on the search form. This fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships.
  • some forms do not include a submit button. This fails WCAG 2 success criterion 3.2.2: On Input.

Tables

  • some tables do not include the scope attribute to tell assistive technologies which cells the header applies to. This fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships
  • some tables do not have clear headers identified. This fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships. The remaining issues relate to tables that have been used for layout purposes and are awaiting changes by our internal content editors to remediate these issues which we expect to be completed by the end of June 2022

Images

  • images containing text are used in multiple locations throughout the website, for example within the News & Press section. This fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.4.5: Images of text
  • decorative images may not be correctly identified or may incorrectly be identified as meaningful. For example, there are several images related to coronavirus content that includes alternative text. This fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.1.1 success criterion: Non-text content
  • some meaningful images do not have alternative text that serves an equivalent purpose or the alternative text is not appropriate or meaningful. For example, the Great Yarmouth Borough Council logo contains an alternative text value of 'Link to Homepage'. This fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.1.1 success criterion: Non-text content
  • some meaningful images are incorrectly identified as decorative as they do not have alternative text. For example, the images included on the News & Press page do not include alternative text that is visible when viewing the news article. This fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.1.1: Non-text content

Semantics

PDFs and other documents

Many of the PDF documents published on the website are not accessible in that they:

  • do not correctly specify a default document language which is used to render text and help screen readers pronounce words correctly; this fails WCAG 2 success criterion 3.1.1 (Language of Page)
  • do not use bookmarks in long documents to provide a hierarchical overview of the document and help aid navigation; this fails WCAG 2 success criterion 2.4.5 (Multiple Ways)
  • do not provide a suitably descriptive or valid title for the document to support assistive technology; this fails WCAG2 success criterion 2.4.2 (Page Titled)
  • have either been incorrectly or not tagged properly; this fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships
  • do not specify headings correctly; this fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships
  • do not ensure that the first heading is a Heading 1; this fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships
  • do not ensure headings follow a logical order; this fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.3.1: Info and Relationships
  • are not machine readable; this fails WCAG 2 success criterion 1.1.1: Non-text Content

Some of the PDF documents we publish are produced by third parties, including external organisations and members of the public. We are not always able to make these fully compliant.

If you are unable to access any document on this site, please email the title and the web address (URL) of the PDF to webmaster@great-yarmouth.gov.uk and we will endeavour to send an accessible version.

Third-party applications

When implementing new online systems, we are requiring these to be WCAG AA compliant.

Some online services we offer use systems and software that are provided by third-party suppliers. These systems are either partially or wholly out of our control and may not conform to the same levels of accessibility compliance as the main website:

  • card payment systems
  • Committee Management Information System (CMIS) for councillor information, meeting agendas and minutes
  • planning application portal
  • recruitment
  • OPENPortal for billing and benefits
  • electoral registration

We are currently working with our third-party suppliers to ensure their systems and services are updated to ensure they are compliant with accessibility guidelines.

Disproportionate burden

This section of the statement identifies issues that we are aware of but are not able to fix at present. For each issue identified, we've undertaken an assessment of the extent of the issue, and deemed that the cost of fixing these issues is a disproportionate burden.

PDFs and other documents

As with all local authorities, we publish many documents each year that are created both within our council and provided by third parties.

As of 8 April 2022, our automated scanning tools have identified 750 PDF documents which have been uploaded to www.great-yarmouth.gov.uk on or after 23 September 2018 that do not meet the required accessibility standard. Further documents have been uploaded to our various web portals.

Most of these documents are posted on pages further into our site and would have likely received very few views which will not adversely impact users with disabilities.

Our experience had identified that PDF accessibility checking tools are inconsistent in identifying accessibility issues affecting PDF and source documents. For example, Microsoft Word's accessibility checker can identify text contrast issues that cannot be identified using the Adobe Acrobat PDF accessibility checker.

Cost of fixing PDF documents

Without reviewing the documents individually, we are unable to calculate exactly how long it would take to fix these issues. This is because each document varies in length and complexity, along with the number and type of issues that are present. Some documents may also require reproducing if we no longer have access to the original source document(s).

Based upon past experiences of fixing accessibility issues within existing documents, we estimate that it would take approximately three hours to apply the necessary changes to fix each document in scope to meet current accessibility requirements.

Using this figure, one employee would be able to update an average of three documents per working day which would be the equivalent of allocating 100% of a full-time staff member for 246 days.

Assessment of cost and benefit

  • we believe that the cost of fixing all documents would be a disproportionate burden on our organisation.
  • we don't believe the cost of time and effort that would be required to update each of these PDFs to be appropriate and/or justified.
  • we believe that this time would be better invested in fixing outstanding accessibility issues present across the website which would be of greater benefit to our customers.
  • we believe that we should first prioritise fixing issues that are present within the most popular documents used by our customers.

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDFs and other documents

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 (opens new window) if they're not essential to providing our services.

As of 8 April 2022, our automated scanning tools have identified that there are 196 PDF documents which were published prior to the 23 September 2018 that do not meet current accessibility requirements. These documents have not since been modified and have been considered to be out of scope of the accessibility regulations. A full list of these documents is available for download: 

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations (opens new window).

Where videos have been uploaded to YouTube, it is possible to enable closed captions. These captions are auto-generated by YouTube and may not be completely accurate. Great Yarmouth Borough Council cannot be held responsible for the content or accuracy of these captions.

Maps and mapping services

Maps and mapping services are not entirely accessible and where possible, key information has been provided in an accessible format.

We do not plan to create accessible maps and mapping services because maps are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations (opens new window).

External links

This website includes links to third-party, external websites and other services that may not be fully accessible.

What we are doing to improve accessibility

We are currently reviewing our existing PDF documents to ensure they meet the accessibility standards.

Where possible, we are publishing new content in HTML or other open formats to help improve accessibility and usability of these documents. We are also reviewing published documents and where appropriate, replacing PDF content with HTML content or open formats.

We will continue to:

  • regularly review and monitor the level of accessibility compliance of our websites
  • review the tools that we use to generate and review compliance of PDF documents
  • review our internal documentation and the training materials provided to staff to ensure this reflects current guidance and best practice
  • raise awareness with our staff to help ensure that any new PDFs or other documents we publish meet the required accessibility standards
  • provide accessible versions of any documents and would subsequently upload these to the website to replace non-accessible versions

How we test this website

We use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines v2.1 level A and level AA to test how accessible this website is.

We undertake accessibility audits of www.great-yarmouth.gov.uk in line with method 1 as described in the guidance make your website accessible and publish an accessibility statement (opens new window).

We also use a third-party provider to undertake regular testing to help report any accessibility issues that can be identified in an automated way.

Last modified on 21 July 2023

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