Accessibility Statement

This accessibility statement applies to nottinghamshire.gov.uk.

This website is run by Nottinghamshire County 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 the website text as simple as possible to understand.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
live video streams do not have captions
some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using a screen reader and voice commands
some of our content does not meet colour contrast ratios
our main search does not contain descriptive labels
the main navigation contains a keyboard trap
the heading structure is not correct on a number of content pages

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 please contact our customer service team in the first instance.

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

If you cannot view the map to your nearest council office on our ‘visit us’ page, please call us via 0300 500 80 80.

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, please contact us or tell us via our Website Accessibility Feedback form.

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 D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

Via phone: Download the Relay UK app or using your existing text phone prefix our dedicated text Relay number with the Relay UK code (18001)

Visiting us: 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

Nottinghamshire County 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 following listed below:

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Nottinghamshire County Council use a number of third party systems to provide online forms, some of which are difficult to navigate using a screen reader and voice commands. This fails WCAG 1.1.1 Non-text content, 1.3.1 Info and Relationships , 2.4.6 Headings and Labels and 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions.
The heading structure is not correct on a number of content pages. This fails WCAG 2.4.6 Headings and Labels. We are working to correct this, and to ensure any new content uses correct heading structures.
Some images on some pages contain missing or incorrect alternative text. Some of these images are also links. This fails WCAG 1.1.1 Non-text Content and 1.4.5 Images of Text. We are working to add text alternatives to all our images, and for new content to ensure use of images meets accessibility standards.
There are some links on the website that may not be accessible to screen readers; they do not contain accurate or descriptive labels. This fails WCAG 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context). We are working to correct this, and to ensure any new content uses descriptive link text.

Disproportionate burden

Read our full Disproportionate burden assessment.

Interactive tools and transactions via third-party systems

Some of our interactive forms are difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, because some form controls are missing a ‘label’ tag.

Our forms are built and hosted through third party software and ‘skinned’ to look like our website.

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with navigation and accessing information, and with interactive tools and transactions.

We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when the supplier contract is up for renewal.

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

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. We plan to fix PDFs that have been published since September 2018, or that are essential to us providing a service. If not made accessible, they will be replaced 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.

We aim to ensure any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards. Where this has not been possible due to timescales of publication you can contact us to request a more accessible version.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

What we're doing to improve our accessibility

We have an ongoing commitment to make our website as accessible as possible to all.

We have carried out extensive in-house training with independent accessibility experts to ensure people directly and indirectly involved with managing our website/s have a better understanding of steps they can take to make content more accessible. We have also worked with third-party suppliers whom we rely on for some of our key online customer journeys to try and ensure our website is more accessible, both now and in-future.

We are currently preparing a roadmap for accessibility based for accessibility based on the findings of our most recent audit, which will allow for users to understand our commitment to accessibility, and when we plan to resolve issues.

In the meantime, we have already fixed many of the issues flagged in the original audit, including:

Colour contrast: This site contains content that does not meet colour contrast ratios. This fails WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast. Fixed December 2020.
Search: The main search for the Nottinghamshire websites does not contain descriptive labels. This fails WCAG 1.1.1 Non-text content, 1.3.1 Info and Relationships , 2.4.6 Headings and Labels and 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions. Fixed December 2020.
Keyboard-only navigation: When using keyboard only methods the main navigation contains a keyboard trap. This fails WCAG 2.1.1 Keyboard and 2.1.2 No keyboard trap. Fixed December 2020.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was first prepared on Monday 14 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 17 July 2023.

This website was last tested on Wednesday 5 May. The test was carried out by HeX Productions.

Testing was taken place by automated methods across the whole site along with manual testing using a range of assistive technologies through 25 defined user journeys.