Accessibility Statement

Southend-on Sea Borough Council accessibility statement

Using this website

This website is run by Southend-on Sea 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 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)
  • the text will reflow in a single column when you change the size of the browser window
  • you can skip to the main content when using a screen reader

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

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


How accessible this website is?

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

  • portable document format (PDF) and Excel reports are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • live video streams do not have captions
  • our mapping tool is difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
  • some links, such as Related Projects, will open in a new browser window without giving you advanced warning that this will happen 


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, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, please email yoursaysouthend@southend.gov.uk

We will consider your request and get back to you in 7 days.


Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations please contact: yoursaysouthend@southend.gov.uk


Enforcement procedure 

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


Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

Find out how to contact us.

Email:yoursaysouthend@southend.gov.uk


Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Southend-on Sea 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(External link) AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.


Issues with technology

  1. EHQ Places is not fully accessible due to the use of drag and drop functionality to add pins. 
  2. Third-party plugins such as Facebook and Twitter widgets can have accessibility issues such as missing titles.
  3. Notes for Likert questions in surveys are only partially accessible by screen-readers.
  4. EngagementHQ uses the primary, secondary and tertiary colours specified on each site’s theme. We strongly recommend that the contrast between the colours used meet the minimum accessibility requirements of 4.5:1 to avoid colour contrast issues.
  5. The behaviour of tabs on project pages is more akin to links. The page is refreshed to load tab content. Ideal behaviour would be to load content without refreshing the page.
  6. On login and registration screens and surveys, error messages are displayed at the top of the page rather than alongside relevant fields.
  7. The Quick Poll list page does not have an H1 tag and fails the accessibility requirement that all pages have a main heading.


We are aware of the following content issues:

  • images in our newsroom may not have alternative text
  • user-generated content including video and image uploads may not be accessible
  • many PDFs on our website may not be accessible to screen reader users

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be structured so they are accessible to a screen reader. By end of March 2020, we plan to either fix PDFs essential to users accessing our services or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

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. For example, we do not plan to fix historic documents.”


What we are doing to improve accessibility

We will carry out regular testing and make improvements, as necessary.


Preparation of this accessibility statement 

This statement was prepared on 06 June 2020. It was last reviewed on 06 June 2020.
 This website was last tested on 04 June 2020 for user-journeys and ease of finding content. The test was carried out by internal staff at Southend-on-Sea Borough Council.