Accessibility statement

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website.

  • Plain English 
    We aim to use plain language and avoid unnecessary jargon and acronyms on this website. There are pages or documents, such as planning documents or council reports, where complex or technical language is often necessary and used. 
    We have set up tasks and transactions to be as straightforward as possible. 
  • Browsers 
    • The site has been tested in the following browsers: 
      • IE8 (basic) and above 
      • Chrome 
      • Firefox 
      • Safari 
      • Android 
      • IOS
    • The browsers that support My Account:
      • Chrome 
      • Edge
      • Firefox 
      • IE8 and above
      • Safari Chrome
      • Find out more 
  • Skip to content
    You can now skip to the main content when using a screen reader.
  • Making your computer work for you 
    There are many ways you can change your browser, computer, keyboard and mouse settings to make the web more accessible for you. 
    The AbilityNet my computer my way guide has helpful advice on customising your computer. 
  • Changing your font size and colour 
    If you do have problems with the default colours and font sizes on the site it is possible to change these settings so all web pages are displayed in a larger typeface and clearer colour scheme. 
    Change colours and fonts 
  • Documents 
    Some documents on this website are available in PDF format. You need to have Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to view these documents.
    The reader is free to download from the     Adobe Reader download page. 
    Adobe provides advice on accessibility for those who have difficulty viewing documents in PDF format. 

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this site are not fully accessible at the moment. For example:

  • many documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • some of the images do not have alternate text
  • some link text is used for multiple destinations

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are 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, please complete this form.

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 are not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS)

Third-party applications

We use platforms and websites developed by external suppliers to provide most of our online services for residents, businesses and organisations that live or operate in Ealing. Because third-party applications are partly or wholly out of our control, they may not conform to the same levels of accessibility as this website. Third-party applications include, amongst others:

  • Bookings
  • Job search
  • My Account
  • Parking permits
  • Payments
  • Planning applications
  • Reporting

Technical information about this website's accessibility

Ealing Council is committed to making this site 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 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances. 

Non-accessible content

Some content is not accessible. We are working on fixing them as soon as we can but there are thousands of pages.

Images

Some images in the news pages may not have a text alternative (alt text), so the information in them is not available to people using a screen reader. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). 

  • When we publish new content we will make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards. 

Links

On some pages the same link text is used for different link destinations. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.4 Link purpose (in context). 

  • This issue will be resolved on the new site, if not before. 
  • When we publish new pages we’ll make sure link text meets accessibility standards.

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and other documents do not meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be marked up so they're accessible to a screen reader. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).

  • we are reviewing all documents to identify which can be deleted, replaced with HTML pages, or made accessible
    • by April 2024, 3,500 documents have been deleted.
    • 4,500 remain and the review continues
  • it is the service's responsibility to make their documents accessible. 270 employees have been trained to make their Word documents accessible and training sessions take place every 3 weeks
  • since January 2022 we check every document before publishing to the website
  • in November 2023 we started to add a 'code' to the filenames, for auditing purposes:
    -acc1 means the document is accessible
    -acc2 means it is a map
    -acc2f means it is a form
    -acc3 means the service has not made the document accessible
    -acc4 means the original document was powerpoint or excel and is now a PDF - and it's unlikely to be accessible

There may be other technical issues which are not listed here. This website is maintained through the Jadu content management system. There is a project underway to procure a new platform which will address the issues on the current website.

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

PDFs and other documents

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix documents published before 23 September 2018 if they are not essential to providing our services.

Maps

Online maps and mapping services are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

What we are doing to improve accessibility

  • when the new platform is installed, we will carry out another automated audit
  • we are reviewing and updating existing content, to ensure it meets accessibility guidelines
  • when we update our website, we check that new content meets accessibility standards
  • we are working to improve the accessibility of documents published on the website
  • we plan to carry out testing in the future with assistive technology
  • we will run audits whenever new functionality is added to the site

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 21 September 2020. 

This website was last tested in August 2020 by Ealing Council. We used automated software Siteimprove.

This statement was updated on:

  • 18 November 2024
    • updated WCAG 2.1 to 2.2
  • 13 February 2024 and 23 April 2024:
    • effective staff training is taking place
    • an audit code is being added to all documents uploaded to the website
    • content review is ongoing
  • 2 February 2022:
    • the user can now keyboard tab to the ‘Council services’ drop-down to the right of main page content
    • keyboard tab focus is now visible after the search button and before ‘Recycling and Rubbish’
    • the user can now keyboard tab to the search button or the hamburger menu when the pages are zoomed in at 200% or higher
    • the search button no longers has the same id attribute as other active elements
  • 23 October 2020 - Skip to content added to the website.

 

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