Website Accessibility Statement

Accessibility Statement for www.worcester.gov.uk

This accessibility statement applies to www.worcester.gov.uk 

This website is run by Worcester City 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
• listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
• listen to most of the website in a logical manner using a screen reader.
• skip navigation to main content when using a screen reader
• 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 is this website?

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

• Most older PDF, CSV and Word documents are not fully accessible to screen reading software
• Some of our forms are documents that are not fully accessible to screen reading software.
• Some of our online forms contain errors, such as unlabelled fields, missing notification of mandatory form fields and a form error message which make them difficult to use with screen reading software
• There is a contrast issue on some of our forms which can make text harder to read
• Some of our older video content may not have captions or transcripts

• You cannot modify the line-height or spacing of the text without the aid of third-party tools
• websites and documents that are produced by third-party organisations and are linked from Worcester City Council
• keyboard navigation using interactive features (such as My Local Area address list selection, Planning Search map layer selection, Self Service box-ticking)

Feedback and contact information

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

• This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
• 01905 722233 and speak to the customer service team.

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, Worcester City Council at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 01905 722233.

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

Worcester 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 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Licensing forms

We are responsible for licensing a range of functions. These require the submission of various forms. The format and content of these forms are prescribed by law. The majority of them are not currently in an accessible format.

This fails success criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A), 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A), 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence (Level A), 2.4.2 Page Titled (Level A), 3.1.1 Language of Page (Level A).

We have recently procured a new supplier for our Licensing forms where we can build accessible forms that includes back-office processes and a online payment system. The facility is provided by Victoria Forms and the forms will be fully compliant with the version 2.2 AA standard. See Victoria Forms’ Accessibility Statement.

We will be moving all our Licensing forms across to the Victoria Forms system. This may take up to 12 months to complete as we need to add workflow and an online payment option for each form. We expect all forms to be completed and compliant by 31 October 2025.

Weekly lists of planning applications

The planning weekly lists are exported and downloaded from third-party software operated by DEF which provides most of the planning software for planning authorities across the UK. Until recently, there had been no options to export them out of DEF as accessible PDFs and therefore the Weekly Lists are not currently accessible.

This fails success criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A), 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A), 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence (Level A), 2.4.2 Page Titled (Level A), 3.1.1 Language of Page (Level A).

Due to a recent SQL database upgrade, we now have the ability to export the necessary accessibility tags to the planning weekly lists PDFs. Our ICT Application Development Team are currently working on building the PDF reports with the correct accessibility structure to be compliant.

We aim to have our Planning Weekly Lists compliant by 31 March 2025.

Unlabelled form fields

Some form fields had labels but were not correctly linked to their input elements using the appropriate attributes. These issues are currently being identified and corrected to ensure proper association for assistive technologies.

 This fails success criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A), 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A), 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose (Level AA), 2.5.3 Label in Name (Level A), 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions (Level A) and 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A).

Our web development team is currently investigating a fix for this issue. It will be implemented as soon as possible but before 1 October 2025.

Empty button

Certain buttons lacked visible labels due to being used in JavaScript-driven sections.

 This fails success criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A), 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A), 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose (Level AA), 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions (Level A) and 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A).

These are now being identified and corrected, with appropriate labels or ARIA attributes being added. . It will be implemented as soon as possible but before 1 October 2025.

Missing notification of mandatory form fields

Some fields were not clearly marked as mandatory. This issue likely arose when non-mandatory fields were later changed to required, but the necessary markup was not added. This fails success criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A), 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose (Level AA), 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions (Level A) and 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A).

Our web development team is currently investigating a fix for this issue. It will be implemented as soon as possible but before 31 October 2025.

Mouse dependent areas

These pages are now fully navigable via keyboard, with clear visual indicators showing the user’s current position. However, certain older JavaScript plugins, such as date pickers, may still require mouse input. Solutions are being developed to replace these with accessible alternatives.

This fails success criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A) and 1.4.13 Content on Hover or Focus (Level AA).

Our web development team is currently investigating a fix for this issue. It will be implemented as soon as possible but before 31 October 2025.

Duplicate IDs

Duplicate IDs are being identified and either removed or replaced to prevent issues with assistive technologies that rely on unique element identifiers.

This fails success criterion 4.1.1 due to duplicate values of type ID (Level A).

Our web development team is currently investigating a fix for this issue. It will be implemented as soon as possible but before 31 October 2025.

Google AdSense iFrames

We currently publish sponsored adverts on our website, where we have implemented Google AdSense to automatically manage the advertisements displayed. Google AdSense requires us to apply a script to our website to deliver the adverts. We do not have control of the code that is dynamically generated by the script, which means the dynamic iFrames do not have a ‘name’ or ‘description’ attributes.

This This fails success criterion 4.1.2: Name, Role, Value (Level A) Atomic rule

Our ICT Development team are currently investigating the issue where we can tell screen readers to simply ignore the iFrame, as the sponsored adverts have no relevance to the main content of the pages. It will be implemented as soon as possible but before 1 October 2025.

Inaccessible Non-HTML Documents

There are more than 1,800 documents, including those in PDF, Word and CSV formats that are not fully accessible. This fails success criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A), 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A), 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence (Level A), 2.4.2 Page Titled (Level A), 3.1.1 Language of Page (Level A).

We have implemented a document strategy to go through and replace all documents from 23 September 2018 with accessible versions. We will complete this work as soon as possible but no later than 31 October 2025.

Some documents submitted to the website between 23 September 2018 and 28 February 2022 may not be fully accessible or have accessible alternatives.

All new documents submitted to the website from 1 March 2022 are fully accessible.

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

PDFs and other documents

Our older PDFs, Word and Excel, and third-party documents do not meet accessibility standards. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value). However, 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, unless found otherwise. Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Video captions

Prerecorded videos published before 23 September 2020 do not include captions. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criteria 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded). Captions may not be added to these videos because a prerecorded video published before 23 September 2020 is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. Any prerecorded video content we publish after 23 September 2020 will meet accessibility standards.

Maps

Interactive maps are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Third-party content

We are unable to make third-party content that is not under our control fully accessible. This content is exempt from the web accessibility regulations.

This includes:

• Adelante payment system is used for some of our pay it pages. We are in contact with Adelante to see if they intend to provide a fix for the issues found. If not we will consider this when we next review the contract in five years' time. Alternative payment options are available including a 24-hour free-to-use telephone payment system.
• Xpress electoral management software. This is used for the running of our elections. We have asked Civica, who have developed the system if they can develop a fix and so far they have been unable to find one, This is partly because the way the forms have to be laid out is prescribed by elections legislation. This is a national issue as all councils use Xpress software.
• modern.gov which is the system used for managing our agendas and hosting information about our councillors. We are in contact with modern.gov to ask them if they can investigate a fix for issues raised, particularly obscure text which fails success criterion 1.4.4 Resize text (Level AA). We will update this statement once we have an outcome from the investigation.
• PDFs or other non-accessible files provided to us by other organisations we are legally required to publish, for example, planning documentation. We will make this information available in an accessible format on request.
• The Planning Portal. This is a national website that provides information on planning issues and is used to make some planning applications. The accessibility of these forms are outside and this content is outside of our control.

How we test this website

A desktop audit and automated test software is carried out weekly by Worcester City Council.

We test our main website platform worcester.gov.uk

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Any new content we publish to the website will:

• Be structured well
• Use plain English
• Contain accessible PDFs

Website testing is carried out weekly to identify accessibility issues, in which they will be tackled in order of those with the greatest impact.

Accessibility User Testing will be carried out in the future to test the accessibility and usability of the functions on the website.

My Computer My Way (MCMW) offer guides to using assistive technologies to use websites with a range of devices.

Our ambition is the majority of issues identified here will be fixed by 31 October 2022.

Enforcement procedure

If you have a complaint about the accessibility of our website, you should raise a complaint using our internal Complaints, Compliments and Suggestions procedure.

If you are not satisfied with our response then 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’) and you should contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

If you wish to contact us about anything not covered in this statement, please visit our Contact us page.

You can also visit us in person at The Guildhall, High Street, Worcester, WR1 2EY or telephone our Customer Service Centre on 01905 722233.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 7 October 2024. It was last reviewed on 8 October 2024.

This statement will be reviewed in full again by 31 May 2025.

This website was last tested on 1 October using in-house testing tools. Testing of every page on the site was carried out using a combination of the following automated software checking tools: Silktide, WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool: (webaim.org), and Axe.

The scope of the automated testing involved establishing a representative sample of pages by employing various methods including using a list of pages common to many websites, inspecting the site for variations in layout and functionality, and selecting pages at random.