Accessibility

What is on this page

• Website Readability and Usability
• Recite Me Accessibility Tool Bar
• How accessible this website is
• Accessibility Enforcement
• Technical information about this website's accessibility
• Disproportionate burden
• Preparation of this accessibility statement

Website Readability and Usability

This website is run by Dumfries and Galloway 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

Most of the above functions can be achieved using our in-built software provided by ReciteMe and described below, or using your own software

We continue to make every effort to ensure this web site is easily readable using plain English. Our web team regularly review content and provide training and recommendations to all our content publishers to ensure all web content is written in a format which is as easy to understand where possible.

Recite Me Accessibility Tool Bar

Recite Me helps people to access our website and to do more of the things they need to do, like find information about how to access the range of council services, by making complaints, access publications and read news.

The Recite Me toolbar has a unique range of functions. You can use it to do the following:

• Have text from our website read aloud (including PDFs)
• Download the text as an MP3 file to play where and when it suits you
• Change font sizes and colours
• Customise background colours
• Translate text into more than 100 different languages
   

How do I access the Recite Me Toolbar

You can open the Recite Me language and accessibility toolbar by clicking on the menu item 'Speak/Translate' in the top right-hand corner.

This 'Speak/Translate' menu item now appears in the site header on every page of our website whether you are viewing on a desktop, tablet or smartphone device.

After you click on the button the Recite Me toolbar opens and displays a range of different options for customising how the website looks and how you can access the content.

Recite Me Toolbar

Text Size

The text size for this site can also be changed using your browser.

• Edge: Select the "View" menu, then "Text size"
• FireFox: Select the "View" menu, then "Zoom" or "Zoom text only"
• Safari: Select the "View" menu, then "Make text bigger" or "Make text smaller"
• Opera: Select the "View" menu, then "Zoom"
• Chrome: Select the "More settings" menu, then under "Appearance" use the arrows next to "Page zoom"

How accessible this website is

We are currently aware that some of the areas of the website are not fully accessible following an internal review by the web team:

• you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
• images contain text which you may not be able to read
• most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
• live video streams may not have captions
• interactive tools are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
• some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard or screen reader due to form labelling (which is in the process of being amended)
   

What to do if you can't access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

• email contact@dumgal.gov.uk
• call 030 33 33 3000

When making a request, please can you provide the following:

• the service area,
• document name and / or
• the web address of the page the content is on

We will consider your request and get back to you as soon as possible.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We're always looking to improve the accessibility of this website.

If you find any problems that aren't listed on this page or think we're not meeting accessibility requirements, contact the Web Team by emailing webteam@dumgal.gov.uk

Accessibility Enforcement

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).

Technical information about this website's accessibility

Dumfries and Galloway 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 (WCAG) 2.1, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

Images

Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

We plan to add text alternatives for all applicable images. When we publish new content we'll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.

Online Forms

Some of our online forms do not currently meet standard WCAG 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions as they do not include accessible form labels. Forms are currently being audited and amended as appropriate.

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 either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages and are in the process of auditing these.

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 will attempt to ensure any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Maps

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

Disproportionate Burden

Navigation and accessing information

There's no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a 'skip to main content' option).

It's not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content.

It's not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping.

Interactive tools and transactions

Some of our interactive content is difficult to navigate using a keyboard. 

We have content which is built and hosted through third party software and 'skinned' to look like our website.

Other council websites

Some of our older websites are built on platforms using templates which we are unable to fix under the new accessibility regulations. We would need to completely redesign these.

We've assessed the cost and time to resource the fixing of the issues listed above.  We believe that doing so now would be a Disproportionate Burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. Any new third party software will be assessed for accessibility criteria.  We will make another assessment when the supplier contract is up for renewal.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 21 September. It was last reviewed on 22 September 2020.

This website was last tested on 14 August. The test was carried out by Zodiac Media using a free tool called Publica11y and our own internal audit.