Accessibility

Accessibility Standards and this Website


Accessibility

We are committed to making our site accessible to all.


Accessibility Standards and this Website

We are continuously improving this website to ensure that it meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines issued by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The WAI website content guidelines, published in 2008 by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), are the globally used and accepted standard for website accessibility, by both the corporate and public sector.

https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/


This website is being continually developed in order to serve the largest possible audience, using the broadest range of systems and to consider any needs that users with disabilities might have.


Accessibility Help - Change the way this website looks - Using tools on your computer

You can control the look and functionality of this website, depending on your computer settings.

Most computers will have accessibility settings you can change including; the way the screen looks (e.g. changing; fonts, sizes, colours, etc), the way the keyboard or mouse works and possibly speaking and listening to commands as well as a range of other features.

As several organisations have already produced lots of very good content about how to make computers and websites more accessible, we have linked to these sites rather than duplicate their content.


My Web My Way produced by the BBC is a comprehensive site with loads of useful information and a wealth of accessibility links


If you're a regular computer users then in Windows - Click on the 'Start' button, then 'Programs', then 'Accessories', then 'Accessibility'.

Your browser will usually have controls which you can use to enlarge the text on your screen.

To alter the font type and size

For improved visibility, our website allows you to increase (or decrease) the size of text and alter the choice of font, to suit your preferences.

All Browsers via mouse control


Internet Explorer Users
To alter the size of the text on this website, select ‘View’ (found on the menu bar across the top of your browser), then Text Size, and then your preferred size.

You can also hold down CTRL and use the mouse wheel at the same time to almost infinitely change the text sizes on our website


Mozilla Firefox Users
Use the mouse wheel (or hold down CTRL and use + key to increase font) to change the text sizes on our website.

To alter the choice of font:


Internet Explorer Users

  • Open your ‘Internet Options’ window by going to ‘Tools’
  • Under History, choose ‘Fonts’ and select your preferred style, then click ‘OK’
  • Go to ‘Accessibility’ within ‘Internet Options’ and click on ‘Ignore font styles/font sizes specified on Web pages’
  • Click ‘OK’


To alter the colour of text and background

You may find specific colours enable you to view our web site easier.


Internet Explorer Users

  • Under Tools choose ‘Internet Options’
  • Under History, choose ‘Accessibility’ and click on ‘Ignore colours specified on Web pages’
  • Click ‘OK’



Hearing Impaired Users

We are currently looking at enabling Screen Readers to read our pages.


Downloadable files

Files have been made available to download in a variety of formats – the most common are Adobe Acrobat (.pdf), Microsoft Word (.doc and .docx) and Microsoft Excel (.xls and .xlsx). Reasonable adjustments have been made to ensure that digital publications available on our website are as accessible as possible. If you need any document in a different format, please contact us.


You may need to download Adobe Reader to view files in PDF format. The latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader has incorporated accessibility features. For example, you can hear a PDF document read aloud or scroll a PDF document automatically. You can access these features in the Edit Preferences menu.

Find out more about the free Adobe online conversion tool which converts the content of PDF files to HTML or text which can be understood by most screen reader applications.

 

Let us know if you have difficulties using this site

If you find anything on the site difficult to use please let us know.

There is advice at  ‘Contacting Organisations about Inaccessible Websites’.

All constructive feedback regarding the accessibility or usability of this website is welcome and will be carefully considered.


Feedback

If you experience any problems with our pages, please contact us and we will try to provide you with the information you need. Please let us know which page (if possible including the page address/URL) you experienced problems with, and if you have any suggestions for how we could improve this page.

 

This statement was last updated on 22nd July  2020