Accessibility statement for Guildford Borough Council main website and MyGuildford

This accessibility statement applies to the following websites in the Guildford Borough Council digital estate:

These websites are run by Guildford Borough Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use our 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)

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We are aware of some issues that may affect the accessibility of some parts of the Guildford Borough Council main website and the MyGuildford website:

there are two instances where images do not have a useful alt text
there are a couple of instances where colour contrast is insufficient
on the Guildford Borough Council website homepage, a hidden element is in the keyboard focus order
heading elements are not used correctly in all places across the Guildford Borough Council main website
some parts of our online forms may be difficult for people who use screen readers to engage with
some people may find form errors difficult to resolve

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: webteam@guildford.gov.uk
call: 01483 505050

We'll consider your request and get back to you in 10 working days.

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, contact us:

email: webteam@guildford.gov.uk
call: 01483 505050

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 this website's accessibility

Guildford Borough 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

These websites are partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 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

Page design

Across the Guildford Borough Council main website, the site logo image does not have an alt text and on the bin collection page on the MyGuildford website, the bin icons are missing a useful alt text. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text content).

We plan to give these images an equivalent text alternative by 30 September 2024.

There are a couple of minor instances where colour contrast is insufficient across the Guildford Borough Council and MyGuildford websites. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.4.3 (Contrast (Minimum)).

We plan to adjust text colour and/or background colour to give these instances a higher contrast value and meet at least the 4.5:1 WCAG minimum contrast requirement by 30 September 2024.

Page structure

Heading elements are not used correctly on the Guildford Borough Council Homepage or News Room, which can make it difficult for some users to discern the structure of the webpage. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and relationships).

We plan to review and update all heading elements to ensure they are used correctly by 30 September 2024. Any new pages will use heading elements correctly from creation.

Navigation

On the homepage of the Guildford Borough Council main website, there is a hidden link 'Top tasks panel' that is in the keyboard focus / tab order. This link is not visible on the page so sighted keyboard users would be uncertain where focus is when tabbing through the page. This fails WCAG success criterion 2.4.3 (Focus Order).

We plan to resolve this issue by 30 September 2024.

Interactive forms

Some form elements are not associated with the visible labels, so are not announced in a useful way by a screen reader. This fails WCAG success criteria 1.3.1 (Info and relationships).

We plan to group elements with their programmatic labels by 30 September 2024.

The error messaging on some of our forms is generic and does not describe how to correct the error. This fails WCAG success criterion 3.3.3 (Error suggestion).

We plan to change our error messaging so it accurately describes the issue and how to fix it by 30 September 2024. Any new forms will be added with descriptive error messaging.

The error messaging throughout the MyGuildford registration process is not announced by screen readers so blind users will be unaware an error has occurred. This fails WCAG success criterion 4.1.3 (Status Message).

We plan to make the error messaging assertive by 30 September 2024.

Third-party content

Some of the issues above are also present on the following parts of our website that are built and hosted through third-party software and 'skinned' to look like our website.

We have engaged the providers of these websites to ask them to carry out additional accessibility audits and fix the issues identified within the next 12 months. If there are issues that they are not able to fix we will perform disproportionate burden assessments around changing to a new supplier. When we come to reassess the suppliers we use, we will also make accessibility a key criterion for any third party we engage with in the future.

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

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 Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

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

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 22nd July 2024. It was last reviewed on 22nd July 2024.

This website was last tested on 16th July 2024. This website was tested for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.2 level A and level AA, and the test was carried out by Web Usability Partnership Ltd.

We used the Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM) approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test.