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

• 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)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

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How accessible this website is

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

• most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software

• you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader

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What to do if you cannot access parts of this website

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If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please email the clerk. We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 10 days.

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Reporting accessibility problems with this website

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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 the clerk.

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Enforcement procedure

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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).

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Disproportionate burden

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Navigation and accessing information

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There’s no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option). This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.1.

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with navigation and accessing information, and with interactive tools and transactions. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations.

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

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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.

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.