- We are committed to providing websites, intranets and online applications that are accessible to the widest possible audience. We proactively work to ensure that our websites are accessible and usable by people of all abilities
- This website is bound by the guidelines of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) [external link] to ensure that the services we provide meet certain standards.
- We follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) v1.0, which have been devised by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) [external link]
- We are aiming to attain double-A status, which is the Government’s target for public sector web sites.
There is now the option of viewing a "high contrast" version of the website. This has been designed so that web users with visual impairments can view the same website information in an easy to read format.
To view the high contrast version of the site, select the high contrast version link at the top the page. To return to the standard version of the page, select switch back to standard contrast version.
Some pages do not have the option to choose a high contrast version yet, but we are working to get the option added in to every page.
To help with navigation, we have a breadcrumb trail at the top of each page which shows you where you are on the website. You can click on any of the links to move your way back up through the site
The navigation bar at the left-hand side of the page is designed to be as easy to use as possible. The page you are currently on is in bold, whilst folders (sections with multiple pages in them) are in a darker colour.
We have used a variety of images on this website. Not only do they make the website look more exciting, but they are helpful to those who may not be able to understand the language used on this site, for example those who speak English as a second language or who have learning difficulties.
We have made the images as small in size as possible, so that they do not cause pages to take a long time to load.
We have tried to not use animations and flashing images on the website, as these images may cause problems for people with epilepsy and attention-deficit disorders.
We have aimed to ensure that all images have appropriate ALT Text – this is so visually impaired web users, or those who choose not to have images displayed on the website can still find out what an image is meant to show.
If you are using Internet Explorer, you can view the ALT Text for an image by moving your mouse over it.
We have set up our tables to have relative width - that way they will resize themselves to fit your browser so you don't have to scroll to view them
We will only use tables on the site when they are the most appropriate way of presenting content and will ensure that they are coded correctly so that people using assistive technologies such as screenreaders can access them.
We have set the majority of text on the website to be relative, so you can make it bigger or smaller if you need to.
You can increase or decrease the text size on the website (and also on any other websites you visit) by doing the following:
- Internet Explorer 7 and 8: Go to view in your browser menu, select the text size option and choose the size of text you want. You can also zoom in and out of the page by pressing CTRL and + or CTRL and -
- Internet Explorer 5 and 6: Go to view in your browser menu, select the text size option and choose the size of text you want.
- Firefox: Go to view in your browser menu and select increase or decrease
- Chrome: Click the page menu and select text zoom.
- Safari: Go to view in your browser menu and select make text bigger or smaller.
- Netscape: Go to view in your browser menu, select the text size option and choose the size of text you want
- Opera: Go to view in your browser menu and select zoom.
You can also resize text on all browsers by pressing CTRL and rolling your mousewheel.
We use headings on our web pages. Not only do headings break up text and make it easier to read, but it is also beneficial to people using screen readers who will be able to easily navigate between headings.
A style sheet is what we use on this website to determine how it looks. You can turn off the style sheet in your browser; this removes background images and makes the text black on a white background. You can then replace the style sheet with your own custom style sheet if required.
You can turn off the style sheet on this website (and also on any other websites you visit) by doing the following:
- Internet Explorer 8: Select the page menu which is on the right of the taskbar. Go to style and select no style.
- Internet Explorer 5-7: Unfortunately you cannot remove a style sheet in Internet Explorer, only replace it. To replace a style sheet, go to tools and internet options. Click the accessibility button at the bottom of the general tab. Select the format my documents using my style sheet button and browse for a stylesheet to upload.
- Firefox: Go to view in your browser menu and select page style. Select no style.
- Safari: Unfortunately you cannot remove a style sheet in Safari, only replace it
- Netscape: Go to the edit menu and select preferences. Select page styles and deselect the options for document css and my stylesheet
- Opera: Go to view in your browser menu and select style. Select user mode. Alternatively you can press ALT and P.
In order to make navigating our website easier, we link to all external websites (pages which are not part of this website) in new windows. If a link points to an external site, it will say so in the link.
Links to other pages on this website will open in the same window.
We have added a number of videos and audio features (such as podcasts) onto the website, in order to make the site more interactive.
We have ensured that videos which are on the website do not start up automatically when a page is loaded.
All videos on the website with speech have transcripts.