Accessibility Statement for Buckinghamshire Council - South Bucks Area

This statement applies to content published on the www.southbucks.gov.uk domain. Other websites managed by Buckinghamshire Council will have their own separate accessibility statements.

As a minimum, you should be able to:

zoom in up to 300% without problems
navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
operate most of the website using a screen reader

We've also tried to make the website text as simple as possible to understand. For advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability, visit AbilityNet.

Other Buckinghamshire Council websites

Specific issues relating to our other core websites can be found on their individual accessibility statements:

How accessible this website is

www.southbucks.gov.uk is partially compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA standards. However, we are constantly working to improve both our compliance and the experience of our users.

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

some online maps and mapping services cannot be easily navigated
some pages and documents are not clearly written or structured
some online tools may be difficult to use for assistive technologies
some videos do not have captions
some content such as images do not have good text alternatives

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 email equalities@buckinghamshire.gov.uk.
We will consider your request and get back to you within 20 working days.

Contacting us

If you can't hear or speak on the phone we provide a text relay service: 18001 01296 395000. Or you can contact us.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are 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, contact: webcontent@buckinghamshire.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 contact us with a complaint and you're not happy with our response contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical Information about this website's accessibility

Buckinghamshire 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 issues:

Non-accessible content

Parts of the website link to legacy county and district council websites. Some of these websites are not fully accessible.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Text not included in an ARIA landmark
Some content may be hard to navigate or identify due as they are incorrectly structured without landmarks. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships).
Link without a text alternative
Some links on the website do not have a text alternative. This may make it harder of assistive technologies to understand where a link will direct to. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose in Content), 2.4.9 (Link Purpose) and 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value).
Element IDs are not unique
Some search fields and navigation areas on a page may have the same ID value. Users may find it difficult to distinguish the difference between those elements. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 (Parsing).
Visible label and accessible name do not match
Some interactive elements such as the page alert banners may contain a label which differs from the page title. This may cause confusion for assistive technology users when navigating the website. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.5.3 (Label in Name).
Links are not clearly identifiable
Many text links on this website are only identifiable by a change in font colour. People who may be colour blind may not be able to identify these easily. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.1 (Use of Colour).
State or property not supported
Some form fields such as radio buttons and text input boxes are labelled with ARIA attributes which are no longer supported. This may make it hard for users of assistive technology to fill in some form fields. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value).
Container element is empty
Some elements on pages, such as lists and form fields, may not contain any content and be confusing for assistive technology users when using the website. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 5.2.5 (Required Owned Elements).
Empty headings
Some header tags have been used on pages without any text. This may cause confusion for screen readers when trying to navigate a page. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (info and Relationships).
Role not include the required context
The role of the buttons on our homepage banner carousel and 'what goes in each bin' tool may not be clear due to being set up as separate list items. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships).
Form field is not labelled
The homepage banner carousel and some form fields use unclear labels which may make it harder for assistive technology to understand what they are for. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.2 (Labels or Instructions).
Scrollable element is not keyboard accessible
The form to purchase the open access electoral register contains an element which is cannot be navigated using a keyboard. This is being investigated by our forms team as it appears to be a fault with this form. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1 (Keyboard).
Inline frame without a text alternative
The reCAPTCHA security check on the street name plate repair form does not have alternative text and so assistive technologies may not understand what it is. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value).
Links in the same context with the same text alternative
Links to the cookie policy on the 'what to recycle' tool appear to link to different locations yet have the same alternative text. Although both links do take the user to the same place, this is may not be clear for assistive technologies. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose: In Context).
Unhelpful image descriptions
Images on some pages do not always have suitable image descriptions. Users of assistive technologies may not have access to information conveyed in images. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content).
Missing captions on videos
Some videos do not have captions which can make them difficult to understand. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2 (Captions).
Inaccessible documents
Many documents are in less accessible formats, for example PDF. Non-HTML documents published on or after 23 September 2018 must have an accessible format.

Disproportionate burden

Not applicable.

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

Documents published before 23 September 2018

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.

Any new PDFs or other documents we publish will meet accessibility standards. Where we are unable to publish accessible documents we will provide alternative methods to access this information.

We plan to fix any remaining issues with documents or replace them with accessible HTML pages as we migrate content over to our new website.

Third party content

Where we choose to feature third party content or functionality on our website, we are responsible for ensuring it meets accessibility standards. However, we are not responsible for the accessibility of third party platforms or content that is neither funded nor developed by us, or under our control. This includes:

third party websites that we link to from this website and any of our other digital channels
social media platforms
data we supply to national databases
third party content we are legally required to publish but is not in the control of Buckinghamshire Council

What we're doing to improve accessibility

We are working with our website developers to make this website as accessible as it can be. Large scale improvements have been made in recent months, however, we still have issues remaining that we are working to find solutions for.

We monitor our accessibility through Siteimprove, which helps us check our website and displays any accessibility issues against accessibility standards. Our web team will continue using Siteimprove to make improvements where necessary.

Roadmap

As part of the reorganisation of local government for Buckinghamshire, the county and district councils have been replaced by Buckinghamshire Council as of 1 April 2020.

Content currently hosted on the legacy council websites will be gradually transferred over to the new Buckinghamshire Council website where it will be republished as fully accessible content. Once this is complete, the current area websites for the district councils and county council will be decommissioned.

This is a gradual process and will take place over the next couple of years. In the meantime, we plan to improve the accessibility of our existing content alongside the migration of content to the new website. Furthermore, all new content published will be fully accessible.

We have begun hiring the team that will be carrying forward this content migration and hope to see significant improvements in the near future.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 19 September 2019. It was last reviewed on 27 April 2021.

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