Accessibility statement for www.bexleysafeguardingpartnership.co.uk

This accessibility statement applies to Bexley S.H.I.E.L.D.’s website at www.bexleysafeguardingpartnership.co.uk.

This website is run by Bexley S.H.I.E.L.D. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • 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.

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:

  • you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
  • most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard

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:

We’ll 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 not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact Bexley S.H.I.E.L.D.:

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

If you are D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment and need assistance when contacting us by phone or visiting us in person, then please contact the Bexley Deaf Centre:

For more information, visit the Bexley Deaf Centre website.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Bexley S.H.I.E.L.D. 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 and exemptions’ listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

General PDF files

There are approximately 15 PDFs on this website which are not exempt from the regulations but which do not currently comply with them. These PDFs generally contain readable text content, but have not been tagged or formatted to raise their accessibility up to the required standards. These PDFs therefore typically fail the following WCAG 2.1 success criteria:

  • 1.1 (non-text content), where the PDFs contain images which do not have alternative text specified
  • 3.1 (info and relationships) and 2.4.6 (headings and labels), where the PDFs do not have tagged heading structures
  • 3.2 (meaningful sequence), where the text in PDFs has been created in floating text boxes (e.g. using desktop publishing software) and no reading order has been specified
  • 1.1 (language of page), where PDFs have not had a language specified in them – please read all such PDFs as UK English

There may also be a small number of PDFs which currently fail success criterion 1.4.5 (images of text), where they contain scanned text which may not have been converted to computer-readable text.

Disproportionate burden

Navigation and accessing information

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

It is not possible to change colours, contrast levels and fonts.

Interactive tools and transactions

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

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 in 12 months time.

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

PDFs and other documents

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. For example, we do not plan to fix a series of leaflets on professional curiosity.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have recently relaunched the safeguarding partnership’s website.   As a new website it has a higher standard of accessibility than our previous website. Staff in the team have been trained to produce their content accessibly in the future.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 16 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 9 September 2020.

This website was last tested in September 2020. The test was carried out by our website developer and by Bexley S.H.I.E.L.D.

The site is built from reusable templates and features, so each of these was tested so that all pages were then made of parts which had been tested. Testing was carried out as the site was developed with each feature being tested as it was developed. Further overall testing of the site’s features was undertaken as we prepared to put the site live in September 2020.