Vale of Glamorgan Council
Cyngor Bro Morgannwg
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Accessibility Statement 

This accessibility statement applies to the Vale of Glamorgan Council website and the Cardiff and Vale Safeguarding Board website.

 

This website is run by the Vale of Glamorgan Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website, that means you should be able to:

  • 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

We have 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.

 

How accessible this website is

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

  • Some of our PDF and other documents are not fully accessible

  • Some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard

  • Some of our pages scroll in two dimensions on small screens

  • Some of our pages are not clearly written or structured

 

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, contact:

 

 

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements, contact:

 

 

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).

 

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

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

 

Compliance status

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

 

Non-accessible content

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

 

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations 

PDFs and other documents

Many of the documents on our website are in a PDF format and are not fully accessible. These fail the following WCAG 2.1 success criteria:

  • PDF 1 - Some PDF images are missing 'alt' text

  • PDF 2 – Some PDFs are missing bookmarks

  • PDF 3 - The tab order for some PDFs is not specified

  • PDF 12 – Some PDFs have form fields that are missing description tags

  • PDF 16 – Some PDFs do not have a specified language

  • PDF 18 – Some PDFs do not have a specified title

We are carrying out a rolling programme of reviewing and removing these PDFs. If you need information from a non-accessible PDF in a different format, please contact us.

 

Headings and titles

There are issues with the headings and titles on some of our pages: 

  • There are empty headings on some of our pages. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels)

  • Some headings on our pages are not descriptive and are too long. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels)

We are reviewing the structure and content of our pages. We will provide training for our content editors on best practice for headings and titles on web pages. We plan to fix any issues as soon as possible.

 

Links

There are issues with the links on some of our pages:

  • The same link text has been used for links to different URLs on some of our pages. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text Content) or 2.4.4 (Link Purpose)

  • Some links on our website do not have descriptions. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose)

  • The purpose of some links on our website cannot be determined from link text alone. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose)

We are reviewing the links on our website. We will provide training for our content editors on best practice on formatting links for web pages. We plan to fix any issues as soon as possible.

 

Forms

Some form controls on our website do not have labels. This means people using screen readers are not able to see the layout of the form. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships). We are reviewing this issue and plan to fix it as soon as possible.

 

Responsive content

Some of our pages scroll in two dimensions on small screens (for example on an iPhone 5). This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.10 Reflow. We are reviewing this issue and plan to fix it as soon as possible.

 

Coding and formatting

There are a number of more technical issues on our website: 

  • Some of our pages do not conform to HTML specification. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 (Parsing) or 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value)

  • Some of our pages are not well formed. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 (Parsing)

  • Some of our pages do not validate. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 (Parsing)

We are reviewing these issues and plan to fix them as soon as possible.

 

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

PDFs and other documents

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they are not essential to providing our services. We are working on reviewing and removing as many older PDFs and documents as possible. Any new documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

 

Video content

The accessibility regulations do not require us to make pre-recorded audio and video published before 23 September 2020 accessible. Plain text transcripts or captions will be provided alongside all audio and video content after this date. The accessibility regulations do not require us to make live audio and video accessible.

 

What we are doing to improve accessibility

125 pages of this website are tested weekly for WCAG 2.1AA compliance. Our tests are carried out by Sitemorse. We aim to address any issues identified by weekly testing as quickly as possible.

 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 21 January 2021. It was last reviewed on 21 January 2022.

 

This website is tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA standard. Our tests are carried out by Sitemorse. You can view a copy of the Vale of Glamorgan Quarter 4 2021 Report on the Sitemorse Index.

 

This website was also tested on 6 October 2021 by the Central Digital and Data Office as part of a monitoring sample of public sector websites.