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
Feedback and contact information
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.
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, please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
We are 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.
Compliance status
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
Non compliance with the accessibility regulations
Information about which areas of the site fail.
Main site
We aim to resolve the following by December 2021:
- images: some images do not have an alt tag, failing success criterion 1.1.1
- images in documents: some images / figures do not have an alt tag, failing success criterion 1.1.1
- documents: PDFs are not tagged so are not accessible by screen readers, failing success criterion 1.3.1
- 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
- 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 language: this is not declared, failing success criterion 3.1.1
- 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
- colours: some body or element colours are set, but not all of them, failing success criteria 1.4.3, 1.4.6 and 1.4.8
- 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/documents (pre September 2018): PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 or documents that are not essential to providing our services
Preparation of this statement
This statement was prepared in July 2020. It was last reviewed on 28 Sepetember 2021.
We re-assess the code, design and content of a website, application or system for accessibility whenever it undergoes a major modification. We do this internally using a combination of automated and manual checking.
Main site page content is manually checked every time it is updated.