news.maidstone.gov.uk

Accessibility statement


Accessibility statement

This website is run by Maidstone Borough 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
  • 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

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.

Our website accessibility

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

  • most older PDF documents aren’t fully accessible to screen reader software
  • live video streams don’t have captions
  • some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
  • you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader

What to do if you cannot access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF or large print:

We’ll acknowledge your request within 1 day and we will tell you how long it will take to complete.

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 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).

Contacting us

Find out more ways of contacting us from our Find and Contact Us page.

Technical information

Maidstone 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.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non accessible content

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

Non Compliance with Regulations

Some images do not have a text alternative, 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). We plan to add text alternatives for all images by September 2020. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.

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

    3rd party content

    Our site includes 3rd party content and documents.

    We cannot guarantee that all 3rd party content is accessible. We are not responsible for any 3rd party content.

    Using 3rd party content or functionality

    We often link to 3rd party websites or documents when there is useful information that relates to our services.

    For example, we link to 3rd party websites such as official information sources like www.gov.uk or www.electoralcommission.org.uk.

    We often create content on 3rd party platforms. For example, we create video content on YouTube. We're responsible for making sure the content is accessible but we're not responsible for YouTube's platform.

    Live video

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

    PDFs and other documents

    Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2.

    Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have forms saved as PDFs.

    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.

    Testing the website

    We're going to fully audit our site to identify any issues and create a plan of action to fix these issues. We will use a combination of automated testing using software and manual testing to find any issues.

    The testing will be carried out by ourselves. We will also assess whether fixing any issues will be a disproportionate burden.

      Improvements to Accessibility

      You can change the colour contrast, line height and font size of our website using our online tool.

      This statement was prepared on 20th September 2019.

      It was last updated on 20th September 2020.


      Share this page

      Twitter Facebook

      MBC social media