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Accessibility statement

We want everyone who visits our website to be able to access the full range of services available, regardless of their skill or technology.

How accessible the site is

We know some parts of this website aren't fully accessible.

There are known issues with the:

• HTML: the underlying code used to create the website
• CSS: used to describe how HTML is shown on the pages
• JavaScript: a development language used to program some areas of the site
• 3rd party functionality: areas of the site which are developed by external 3rd party companies
• content: this includes web page content or documents

What to do if you have problems or queries

If you have any accessibility problems or feedback, please email us at webadmin@durham.gov.uk.

If you need to contact us about any other issues, please use our contact us page.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you're not happy with how we respond, please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website's accessibility

Durham County Council is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Under the Equality Act 2010 we must ensure we do not unlawfully discriminate in our service delivery and make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities where necessary. We are constantly working to improve the accessibility and usability of our site.

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

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

Information about which areas of the site fail.

Roadmap

A program of work is now underway to address issues, involving both our in-house developers and designers, and the companies who provide 3rd party functionality.

We aim to resolve the following by September 2021:

Main site and catalogue

• images: alt text uses ascii art, failing success criterion 1.1.1
• images: some images do not have accessible names, failing success criterion 1.1.1
• elements: objects elements do not have alt text, failing success criterion 1.1.1
• images in documents: some images / figures do not have an alt tag, failing success criterion 1.1.1
• hidden elements: an element with aria-hidden=true contains focusable content, failing success criterion 1.3.1
• stylesheets: stylesheet positioning is making pages unreadable when the stylesheet is turned off, failing success criterion 1.3.2
• tables: heading elements are not declared and role=presentation is not used, failing success criterion 1.3.1
• documents: PDFs are not tagged so are not accessible by screen readers, failing success criterion 1.3.1
• IDs: aria control attributes do not point to IDs of elements in the same document, failing success criterion 1.3.1
• markup: the stylesheet font-weight property is used rather than semantic markup like strong, failing success criterion 1.3.1
• links: these do not have underlining making it hard for colour-blind users to see them, failing success criterion 1.4.1
• background colours: some text / background colours do not have enough contrast, failing success criterion 1.4.3
• frames and iframes: some do not have a title attribute, failing success criterion 2.4.1
• document titles: some documents have no title failing success criterion 2.4.2
• page titles: pages titles are not unique, failing success criterion 2.4.2
• form field labels: some are not unique or are not enclosed in a fieldset with a legend to make them unique, and fail success criterion 2.4.6
• headings: empty headings fail success criterion 2.4.6
• outline / border style: the stylesheet makes it difficult to see the dotted link focus outline, failing success criterion 2.4.7
• page language: this is not declared, failing success criterion 3.1.1
• language: some phrases in a different language should are not in a span or div with a lang attribute, failing success criterion 3.1.2
• tags: an end tag violated nesting rules, failing success criterion 4.1.1
• IDs: some elements have duplicate IDs which cause problems in screen readers, failing success criterion 4.1.1
• labels: some aria controls have no labels, failing success criterion 4.1.2
• forms: some form controls have blank labels or titles, which fails success criterion 4.1.2
• images: some alt text is the same as the image's file name, failing success criteria 1.1.1 and 1.2.1
• images: some alt text contains placeholder text, failing success criteria 1.1.1 and 1.2.1
• fieldsets: fieldset elements are not labelled with legend elements, failing success criteria 1.3.1 and 3.3.2

Shop

• elements: a fieldset element has been used to give a border to text, failing success criterion 1.3.1
• form field labels: some are not unique or are not enclosed in a fieldset with a legend to make them unique, and fail success criterion 2.4.6
• attributes: some attributes do not have spaces between them, failing success criterion 4.1.1
• attributes: extra quote marks are appearing, possibly due to missing ones earlier in code, failing success criterion 4.1.1
• forms: some form controls have blank labels or titles, which fails success criterion 4.1.2

Mapping

• images: some images do not have an alt tag, failing success criterion 1.1.1
• background colours: some text / background colours do not have enough contrast, failing success criterion 1.4.3
• zooming: viewport tag is being used to disable zoom, which fails criterion 1.4.4
• forms: some form controls have blank labels or titles, which fails success criterion 4.1.2
• attributes: there are bad values for attribute roles, failing success criterion 4.1.2
• fieldsets: fieldset elements are not labelled with legend elements, failing success criteria 1.3.1 and 3.3.2
• elements: some elements do not contain text or an img with an alt attribute, failing success criteria 2.4.4, 2.4.9 and 4.1.2

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

• PDFs and documents (pre September 2018): PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 or documents that are not essential to providing our services
• pre-recorded audio and video published before 23 September 2020
• maps unless they provide core information

How we test the site

We re-assess a website or system for accessibility whenever it undergoes a major modification.

Main site page content is checked every time it is updated.