Accessibility statement

Accessibility statement for the Plymouth Online Directory

This website is run by Plymouth City 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% 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.

How accessible is this website?

Parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

some pages and document attachments might not be written in plain English
some tables might not have row or column headers
some documents might have poor colour contrast
some images might not have image descriptions
some information in tables cannot be reached with a keyboard
some documents are in PDF format and are not accessible.

We have provided more details below.

What to do if you cannot access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format, like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording, or braille, please email pod@plymouth.gov.uk.

We'll consider your request and get back to you within 10 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We're always looking to improve the accessibility of our website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we're not meeting accessibility requirements, email pod@plymouth.gov.uk.

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

Plymouth Online Directory is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard due to the non-compliances listed above.

Non-accessible content

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

On the homepage of this website, the keyboard focus is not visible for some links. WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible.

On the homepage of this website, for example, at 200% zoom and more, the accordion menus for 'Directory', 'Wellbeing Hubs' and 'News' may not have sufficient colour contrast when they receive focus. WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast (minimum). This issue may also be present on other pages.

On the homepage of this website, certain ARIA roles must contain particular children. This refers to the row of links under 'How can we help you?'. This includes 'Adult social care', Housing and care homes', 'Children, families, schools' and 'SEND local offer'. WCAG 1.3.1 Info and Relationships:

On the contact page of this website, for example, the keyboard focus may not be visible when tabbing between the magnifying glass icon and the hamburger menu at 200% zoom. WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible. This issue may also be present on other pages.

Within some PDF documents, the language might be missing within the settings of the PDF document. WCAG 3.1.1 Language of Page.

Within some PDF documents, the files might have elements that do not have alternative text. WCAG 1.1.1 Non-text content.

Within some PDF documents, the files might have elements that are not correctly tagged. WCAG 1.3.1 Info and Relationships.

We understand that the regulations don't require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they're not essential to providing our services. However, if you need the information in an alternative format, please contact us.

Third-party content

Our website contains third-party content, some of which may not be fully compliant with accessibility regulations, for example Facebook or YouTube social media feeds.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Some of our documents are not fully accessible. We are in the process of reviewing these documents to fix their accessibility. Priority is being given to the documents used by our most vulnerable residents and those that are downloaded the most.

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

The following are issues that we do not need to fix right now, and these are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. We plan to either fix or replace them with accessible HTML pages on this website.

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. Any new PDFs or documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Testing our website

This website was last tested on 1 April 2024. We did our own testing using automated and manual testing using the Wave accessibility tool.

We tested several pages that included a wide range of functionality.

What we're doing to improve accessibility

We have a plan in place to improve the accessibility of our website and are working to fix any issues that don't meet the requirements.

Staff who have responsibility for the content have been trained to produce more accessible content.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 28 August 2020. It was last reviewed on 1 April 2024.

Accessibility statement