Accessibility: List of Known Issues
WCAG AA 2.4.7 Ensure controls change appearance when they are selected
Some controls on our homepage – including links, buttons, and fields – do not always show when they have been selected by the keyboard. Making this change would require input from the designer at our external agency and is not an issue that we can fix in house.
WCAG A 2.4.1 Avoid linking to anchors that do not exist
WCAG A 2.4.4 Ensure links explain their purpose
In some cases, link text does not adequately explain the purpose of a link, such as through using the words ‘click here’, ‘link’ or ‘more’. We will review all cases of link text that does not adequately explain the purpose of the link, and will adjust the text to ensure that it provides an adequate explanation.
WCAG A 2.4.4 Avoid using the same link text for different destinations
On a number of our pages the same link text is used for links pointing to different web addresses. We will review all cases of link text that points to different web addresses and adjust the text to ensure that this does not cause confusion for users of screen readers.
WCAG A 2.4.1 Specify a title for all inline frames
A ‘title’ attribute must be specified for all iframes. This is an issue that must be resolved by our developers, as we cannot solve this issue in house.
WCAG AA 1.4.3 Ensure text has sufficient contrast
There are some colour combinations used on our site where the colour contrast is not sufficient enough to enable people with moderate visual impairments to read it. We will work with our web designers to improve colour contrast where there are issues.
WCAG A 1.3.1 Ensure form controls have labels
In order to be accessible, forms must define explicit text labels for each form control, to ensure that people using screen readers can determine the layout of a form. We will work with our developers to ensure that our form controls have labels.
WCAG AA 1.3.5 Identify the purpose of fields programmatically
Fields must identify what their purpose is programmatically, but this is not currently the case for a number of our forms. We will work with our developers to ensure that the purpose of fields is identified programmatically.
WCAG A 1.3.1 Wrap items with the same name inside a fieldset
Radio buttons or check boxes with the same name attribute must be contained within a fieldset element. This is not currently the case for a small number of forms on our website; we will work with our designers to ensure that this issue is resolved.
WCAG A 1.4.1 Ensure links are distinguished by more than just colour
There is one page on our site where two links are only distinguished by colour. We will edit this page to ensure that the links follow the design used elsewhere on the site and are no longer only distinguished by colour.
WCAG A 1.1.1 Combine adjacent links with the same destination
On some of our pages adjacent links point to the same destination, when the two links should instead be combined. We will review pages where this is the case and ensure that we are improving our use of links to ensure that there is greater clarity for users of screen readers.
WCAG A 1.1.1 Avoid alternative text that is the same as adjacent text
Some of our pages include the use of alternative text that duplicates the content of a text link inside or beside it. We will review pages where this is the case and ensure that we are providing useful alternative text that differs sufficiently from adjacent text.
WCAG A 1.3.1 Ensure headings include text
Heading elements must contain some machine-readable text content – they should never be empty or just contain whitespace. On some pages, headings do not always include text. We will review these pages and ensure that we remove headings that do not include text.
WCAG A 1.3.1 Add a scope to table headings
WCAG A 1.3.1 Mark navigation as lists
Lists of related links should be written semantically as a list, allowing assistive technologies to navigate between items more easily, or past entire groups. We will work with our developers to ensure that navigation is marked as lists.
WCAG A 4.1.2 Ensure links can be used by screen readers
PDFs
We currently have 376 PDFs on our website which are less than 2 years old. None of these are fully accessible.
They fail on one or more of the following criteria:
WCAG A 1.1.1 Ensure PDFs are machine readable
WCAG A 1.3.1 Specify headings for every PDF
WCAG A 2.4.2 Define a title for all PDFs
WCAG A 1.3.1 Fix untagged PDFs
WCAG A 3.1.1 Ensure PDFs specify a default language
WCAG A 1.3.1 Ensure the first heading in a PDF is a H1
WCAG A 1.3.1 Ensure PDF headings follow a logical order
WCAG A 2.4.2 Improve weak PDF titles
WCAG A 2.4.5 Ensure long PDFs use bookmarks to aid navigation
We plan to remove PDFs that fail the criteria, or work to make them accessible or to reproduce their content on accessible web pages to provide an alternative source for this content.
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.
We will endeavour to ensure that any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.