Accessibility statement for Central Bedfordshire SEND Local Offer

This website is run by Central Bedfordshire 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)

At the top of our website, you will see a button that says Speak / Translate. This opens “Recite Me”. Recite Me is a cloud-based assistive technology toolbar which allows web visitors to customise our digital content, so that they can consume it in ways that work for them.

Recite Me features

Screen reader

The Recite Me screen reader helps website visitors to perceive and understand our digital content by reading aloud website text, which can be customised to suit the viewer.

Reading

To simplify and support our website visitors Recite Me provides five main tools:

  • ruler
  • screen mask
  • magnifier
  • margins
  • dictionary

Styling

The Recite Me assistive toolbar allows you to change the way our website looks. Users can customise the websites colour scheme as well as the texts font style, size, colour, and spacing.

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:

  • Rich text editor boxes (aka WYSIWYG input fields)

The rich text editor limitation is seen as a low impact limitation which applies specifically to registered service providers. Members of the public form the largest grouping of people using this website and will not be affected by this limitation.

A third-party plugin is used to provide this feature and an alternative is under evaluation.

Feedback and Contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format or would like to give us website feedback:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in five working days.

Making documents available in other languages

For the most part we do not provide documents translated into other languages on our website. 

If you would like to request a document in another language, please contact us via our Contact Form or by emailing local.offer@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk, and a translated version of a document may be provided where possible.

We do have the facility to enable all our HTML web pages to be translated into over 100 different languages , including 35 “text to speech” voices by using the Recite Me assistive toolbar.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website.

If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements, contact us via our Contact Form or by emailing local.offer@centralbedfordshire.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 are unhappy with how we respond to your complaint, please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).


Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Central Bedfordshire Local Offer 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 website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA standard.

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:

  • Rich text editor boxes (aka WYSIWYG input fields)

Disproportionate burden

We  do not categorise any accessibility issues on Central Bedfordshire Local Offer as a disproportionate burden to fix within the meaning of the regulations, with the exception of PDFs and other documents.

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

You can find the complete list of content exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations on legislation.gov.uk.

PDFs and other documents

We have links to over 230 PDF Documents on our website. Some of these PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. An example of these essential documents are guides on how users can access our services. 

Our approach

We have put guidance and procedures in place to ensure that all new documents that we produce are accessible in addition to accessibility training.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards unless we determine that they represent a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We are not required to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.

Video

Live video streams may not include captions. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.2.4 Captions (Live). We may not add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Some pre-recorded time-based videos published before 23 September 2020 do not include captions. This fails WCAG success criteria 1.2.2 Captions (Pre-recorded). We may not add captions to these videos because pre-recorded video published before 23 September 2020 is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Some pre-recorded videos published before 23 September 2020 may require, but do not  include, audio description. This fails WCAG success criteria 1.2.5 Audio Description (Pre-recorded). We may not add audio description to these videos because pre-recorded video published before 23 September 2020 is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Any pre-recorded video content published after 23 September 2020 will have met  accessibility standards.

Maps

Online maps and mapping services are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. From 23 September 2020 we will ensure that where maps are intended for navigational use essential information has been provided in an accessible digital manner.

What we are doing to improve accessibility

We want to go above and beyond the legal web accessibility requirements to make Central Bedfordshire Local Offer more inclusive for everyone.

This includes fixing issues to conform with Level AAA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2.

To achieve this, we will:

  • work with our supplier to fix known accessibility issues
  • continue monitoring our website for issues using automated software
  • carry out manual checks for problems that software cannot detect
  • test the site with users who have disabilities at regular intervals
  • perform a formal accessibility audit at least once every 12 months
  • help Content Owners create accessible content
  • aim to produce information in more accessible formats, such as easy read guides

We will update our accessibility statement when we find issues that are likely to take time to resolve, and when we carry out an audit.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This website was last tested 25 January 2024 against the WCAG 2.1 AA standard.

The test was carried out by Idox Software Ltd. The test was a combination of manual and automated tasks and using the Axe Accessibility Testing Tool.

Published date 25 January 2024.   Last updated 12 March 2024.

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