Accessibility statement for Reigate & Banstead Borough Council

Pages in Accessibility statement for Reigate & Banstead Borough Council

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Website accessibility

Using this website

This website is run by Reigate & Banstead 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 colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 300 per cent 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)

We’ve 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.

Language

We use plain English to make the text easy to read. We aim to create content for a reading age of 11. We regularly run readability audits on our content and make continual improvements. As of 22 September 2020, our content meets AA accessibility standards.

Sign language readers can visit a British Sign Language (BSL) translator

If you would like to read the website in another language please use Google Translate.

This statement was prepared on 20 April 2022. It was last updated on 29 April 2022.

How accessible is this website?

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

  • some documents in PDF (portable document format) and Word format may not be accessible
  • some live video streams might not have captions

What to do if you can’t access parts of this website

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

Email: webteam@reigate-banstead.gov.uk

Feedback and contact information

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

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 1 day. Our working day is Monday to Friday 9am to 4pm, excluding public holiday days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re 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’) - GOV.UK.

If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, 
contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We provide a text relay service for people who are, or identify as deaf or hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

Our offices, main entrance to Reigate and Banstead Town Hall, and the new Council Chamber have audio induction loops, and also a portable induction loop for the remainder of the Town Hall is available on request, if you contact us before your visit.

Find out how to:

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Reigate & Banstead 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 - GOV.UK.

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] listed below.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Non-accessible content

PDFs, non-compliance with the accessibility regulations and other documents

Many of our PDFs and Office documents published before 23 September 2018 do not meet accessibility standards. For example, they may not be structured so they're accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value) and WCAG 2.4.2 (page, titled). We are currently identifying documents which do not meet these standards. This includes documents on our democracy sub-domain. We are currently working on a solution for this and expect to update this statement in September 2022. Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish on the main website should meet accessibility standards.

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

Non-HTML documents published before September 2018 do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents - GOV.UK - unless users need them to use a service.

Read the regulations - GOV.UK

We will ensure that any new PDFs or Word documents we publish on our main site meet accessibility standards.

Our approach to carrying out accessibility checks

We use a combination of methods to assess the accessibility, as directed by GOV.UK guidance on deciding how to check your websites and in compliance with the accessibility regulations. Therefore we use, a various web browsers for accessibility audit checking, including  desktop and smartphone usage.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations - GOV.UK.

How we tested this website

This site was most recently tested on 29 April 2022. This website was and is currently being tested for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1 level A and level AA, and these tests have been carried out internally. We used automated testing software Siteimprove Accessibility Checker. For some sections we also used WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Non-HTML documents

We are training our staff in accessibility and how to create accessible documents. We are updating documents which are essential to providing our services to make sure they are fully accessible.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

Accessible document policy

Cookies policy

Privacy Notice