Accessibility statement

Page Contents

Accessibility statement for Peterborough.gov.uk

This accessibility statement applies to the Peterborough City Council website, peterborough.gov.uk. 

This website is run by Peterborough City Council. It is designed to be used by as many people as possible. The text should be clear and simple to understand. 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)

How accessible this website is

Parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

  • some pages and document attachments need general improvements
  • some third-party applications/functions are not fully compliant

Feedback and contact information

If you need information in a different format, like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please contact us and tell us:

  • the web address (URL) of the page content
  • your name and email address
  • the format you need, for example, audio CD, braille, BSL or large print, accessible PDF

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or you think we’re not meeting the accessibility requirements, contact us.

Enforcement procedure

If you contact us with a complaint and you’re not happy with our response contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

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’).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Peterborough City 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 non-compliances listed below:

  • some pages and document attachments need general improvements
  • some third-party applications/functions are not fully compliant

We aim to meet WCAG 2.1 to AA standards, however as a working and evolving website some content issues can arise - we monitor our website weekly using Siteimprove and will seek to address any issues within 1-4 weeks. We have an average accessibility score of around 95% across our entire website at any one time.

Non-accessible content

The content that is not accessible is outlined below with details of:

  • where it fails the success criteria
  • planned dates for when issues will be fixed

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  • Some pages and document attachments need general improvements/maintenance - due to be fixed within four weeks rolling basis. 

We currently don't have any long-term issues (ones that exceed 4 weeks).

Third party systems

The council uses the systems listed below that are supplied by other organisations to provide access to services online through the council website.

Some areas of these third party systems are not fully accessible, we are working with the suppliers to improve the accessibility of these systems. If you have a problem accessing any third party systems please contact us. 

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

  • Third party content that the council has not paid for or developed - for example, social media 'like' buttons or PDF documents
  • Live audio and video
  • Maps
  • Archives and historical information

How we tested this website

This website was and is currently being tested for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1 level A and level AA, and these tests have been carried out internally. For the ongoing monitoring of accessibility issues with our web content we use Siteimprove. For detailed investigations and coding issues we use google dev tools and lighthouse, in consultation with our website developers.

What we're doing to improve accessibility

Accessibility improvements are carried out on a daily basis. We plan to identify and fix issues according to the timescales shown for each area above. The majority of issues that can crop up are fixed as they are discovered. Any issues requiring investigation or known longer term fix will be recorded in the section above ' Non-accessible content' and the timescales indicated.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 23 September 2022. It was last reviewed on 11 July 2023.

This website is monitored on a monthly basis. Tests are carried out by our in-house web team. We use Siteimprove software to report accessibility issues.

Accessible documents policy

This policy explains how accessible the documents on the council website are. It covers PDFs, spreadsheets, presentations and other types of document.

Using our documents

The council publishes documents in a range of formats, including PDFs and spreadsheets.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use those documents. For example, when we produce a document we make sure to:

  • provide an HTML option where possible
  • tag headings and other parts of the document properly, so screen readers can understand the page structure
  • make sure we include alt text alongside non-decorative images, so people who cannot see them understand what they’re there for
  • avoid using tables, except when we’re presenting data
  • write in plain English

How accessible our documents are

New documents from September 2022 that we publish and documents you need to download or fill in to access our services should be fully accessible.

Although some of our documents will pass accessibility checks at WCAG 2.1 - we know that in reality these may not be humanly accessible - for example it might be a plan map of a new parking zone - or a technical diagram. We aim to include a contact number or alternative in these instances.

After a large project to update all our documents (including the ones pre-dating 2018 change in law) we managed to have all our PDFs made accessible. We now maintain this with no document on the website failing a check after four weeks of upload. Typically, we will never have more than 1% of our PDF documents failing accessibility checks.

But if you need to access information in a PDF that has been uploaded, you can contact us and ask for an alternative format.

Reporting accessibility problems with one of our documents

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of our documents. If you find any problems not listed on this page or you think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements contact us.

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).

Technical information about the accessibility of our documents

The council is committed to making our documents accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

The documents the council publishes are partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Making documents available in other languages

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 and a translated version of a document may be provided where possible.

Non accessible content

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

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

A few of our documents have diagrams or maps. These images have a text alternative, but it may be impossible to fully detail what is visually being described, so the information in them is not available to people using a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

Documents on this pavement licence page are submitted by the public and are made available immediately for 7 days as part of a wider consultation. Parts of the documents may contain hand drawn diagrams and hand-written information. Contact details are on the page to access this information in an alternative way.

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

  • We have some third-party documents uploaded on our website, these are often not part of our service delivery and often promotional materials, signposting and further information materials.

From May 2022 we are introducing a stricter inclusion policy for third party materials, we seek to link to the third party website rather than having their documents on our website.

This policy was last updated on 11 July 2023.