Accessibility report for www.devonandcornwall-pcc.gov.uk
Introduction
Website accessibility regulations came into force on 23 September 2018. The regulations mean that public sector bodies now have a legal obligation to meet accessibility requirements for their websites.
To check how well the public sector are meeting the requirements, the Government Digital Service (part of the Cabinet Office) has been monitoring a sample of public sector websites.
You’ve been sent this report because https://www.devonandcornwall-pcc.gov.uk/ is one of the websites we’ve monitored. This document explains:
- which parts of your website we looked at
- how we checked the accessibility of those pages
- the accessibility issues found and how important they are
- what you need to do next to fix the issues
You can read more about the web accessibility regulations.
How accessible the website is
We checked https://www.devonandcornwall-pcc.gov.uk/ on 20 September 2022 against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA standard.
Based on our testing, this site is partially compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA. This means there are some things which are not fully accessible.
How we checked
We use a mixture of simple manual checks and automated tests to find only the most common barriers to users with accessibility needs. We would expect your organisation to fully audit the website to find any other accessibility issues.
Manual checks included using each page without a mouse, viewing the page at different zoom settings, and simulating viewing the page on a small screen.
The automated tests were completed using the latest version of Axe.
Tests were completed using different settings in the Google Chrome browser on Mac OSX with a 13 inch screen.
Pages we checked
| Page Name | URL |
|---|---|
Home |
|
Contact |
|
Accessibility statement |
https://www.devonandcornwall-pcc.gov.uk/information-hub/site-accessibility/ |
Independent audit committee Annual report 2021-2022 |
|
News |
https://www.devonandcornwall-pcc.gov.uk/news-and-blog/multimedia-hub/ |
Covid 19 information |
The issues we found
Only serious accessibility issues on the sample of pages we tested are listed in this report – these will cause problems for users with access needs when using your website. There are likely to be smaller errors which will make things more difficult for some users. You must carry out your own audit to find and fix issues on other pages.
Home page issues
https://www.devonandcornwall-pcc.gov.uk/
| # | Issue and description | Where the issue was found |
|---|---|---|
| Issue:1 |
Poor colour contrast makes it difficult for someone with sight loss to see the content properly. If there is a big difference between the background and foreground colours it should be much easier to see the difference between them. |
|
| Issue:2 |
Users should be able to use a keyboard to access all content and functionality of a web page. This means the page can be used by people with no vision as well as people who use alternative keyboards or input devices that act as a keyboard. |
|
| Issue:3 |
A visible focus helps users know which element has keyboard focus and where they are on the page. When an element gets focus there should be a visible border around it. Highlighting the element that has keyboard focus or is hovered over can provide information like whether the element is interactive or the scope of that element. Operating systems have a native indication of focus, which is available in many browsers. The default display of the focus indicator is not always highly visible and may even be difficult to see especially on coloured backgrounds. |
|
| Issue:4 |
Reflow or ‘responsive web design’ helps users with low vision who may need to enlarge text on a webpage and read it in a single column without scrolling in more than one direction. It also helps users who are viewing the page on a mobile device. If a page does not support reflow it can appear smaller and more difficult to use or content may be cut off. Navigation menus often collapse into fewer items or into a single menu button to take up less space. All content and functionality must still be fully available. |
|
| Issue:5 |
Images of text cause problems for users who need to adjust how visual content like font size, spacing or colours are displayed. The image quality can reduce and become blurry when users increase page magnification. Images of text should not be used unless text cannot be formatted to the same effect, for example logos or branding. Text may be used in images where the text is part of an image that contains a lot of other visual content like graphs or diagrams that give important information through more than just text. |
|
| Issue:6 |
Content that moves, flashes or updates automatically can be a severe distraction for certain users, making it difficult to use the page. It can also cause problems for assistive technologies like screen readers. For any moving, flashing or scrolling information that:
there should be a way for the user to pause, stop or hide it, unless it is part of an essential activity. There must be a method to allow the user to pause, stop, hide or control the frequency for content that automatically begins ‘auto-updating’ in parallel with other content unless it is essential to an activity. |
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Contact page issues
| # | Issue and description | Where the issue was found |
|---|---|---|
| Issue:1 |
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| Issue:2 |
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| Issue:3 |
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Accessibility statement page issues
https://www.devonandcornwall-pcc.gov.uk/information-hub/site-accessibility/
| # | Issue and description | Where the issue was found |
|---|---|---|
| Issue:1 |
|
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| Issue:2 |
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| Issue:3 |
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Independent audit committee Annual report 2021-2022 issues
| # | Issue and description | Where the issue was found |
|---|---|---|
| Issue:1 |
Assistive technologies are more accurate when a document has a specified language. For example, knowing the language means screen readers can accurately convert text to speech with the correct pronunciation and visual browsers can display the correct characters. This allows users to understand content better. |
|
News page issues
https://www.devonandcornwall-pcc.gov.uk/news-and-blog/multimedia-hub/
| # | Issue and description | Where the issue was found |
|---|---|---|
| Issue:1 |
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| Issue:2 |
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| Issue:3 |
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Covid 19 information page issues
https://www.devonandcornwall-pcc.gov.uk/covid-19-info/
| # | Issue and description | Where the issue was found |
|---|---|---|
| Issue:1 |
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| Issue:2 |
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| Issue:3 |
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| Issue:4 |
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| Issue:5 | WCAG 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) and WCAG 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value: Links must have discernible text. Issue found using Deque Axe. All link names should be accessible by a screen reader and be descriptive enough to tell a user where that link will take them. Common issues include:
All links should receive focus and link text should not be hidden as this will stop a screen reader from relaying the link information. |
|
Your accessibility statement
As part of the regulations you must publish an accessibility statement.
An accessibility statement for the website was found but:
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it was not in the correct format
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accessibility issues were found during the test that were not included in the statement
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mandatory wording is missing
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it must link directly to the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) website
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in 2020 the GOV.UK sample template was updated to include an extra mandatory piece of information to outline the scope of your accessibility statement. This needs to be added to your statement.
More information about accessibility statements can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/accessibility-requirements-for-public-sector-websites-and-apps.
A sample statement can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sample-accessibility-statement.
What to do next
It is a requirement of The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 that public sector websites are accessible.
You should fix the issues that were found and do your own accessibility audit to check for issues that go beyond the scope of simple accessibility testing.
You need to review your accessibility statement to cover the issues found in this report, including ones related to your accessibility statement, and any other accessibility issues found during your own site audit.
Enforcement
On behalf of the Minister for the Cabinet Office we provide the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) or Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) with details about public sector bodies who have been monitored. If accessibility issues remain after giving you time to fix them, the EHRC or ECNI may take further action.
Public sector bodies must publish an accessibility statement and review it regularly. If the decision is taken that a public sector body has failed to publish an accessibility statement or that the accessibility statement is incorrect, the Minister for the Cabinet Office may publish the name of the body and a copy of the decision.
The enforcement process can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/accessibility-requirements-for-public-sector-websites-and-apps#how-the-accessibility-regulations-will-be-monitored-and-enforced.
Contact and more information
This test was conducted by the Government Digital Service on behalf of the Minister of the Cabinet Office as part of their obligations to monitor the accessibility of public sector websites in the United Kingdom.
As the monitoring body we cannot offer specific advice on approaches or general accessibility queries other than questions directly related to the items in this report.
Any questions about this report can be sent to accessibility-monitoring@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk.
Further information on guidance and tools for digital accessibility can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/guidance-and-tools-for-digital-accessibility.
Help with accessibility auditing and publishing an accessibility statement can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/make-your-website-or-app-accessible-and-publish-an-accessibility-statement.