Accessibility statement for South Staffordshire Council

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

• Some of our online services are hosted by third-party suppliers and you may find navigating these services difficult depending on their level of web accessibility- you can contact us using the details below to ask for alternative formats
• Some of our online services require new windows or tabs to be opened which may clash with some mobile phones security settings. This will require you to update your settings.
• Some of our forms are currently in PDF format  
• Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software 
• Many of our videos are embedded from YouTube and may feature labelling from YouTube itself, which may be incorrect or not sufficiently descriptive 
• Our interactive Flipping Book leaflets and magazines do not contain alternative text, we have provided an accessible PDF to assist with making them more accessible

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: Communications Team by emailing communications@sstaffs.gov.uk or calling 01902 696000.

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

• email communications@sstaffs.gov.uk
• call 01902 696000

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

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).

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

Compliance status

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions’ listed below.

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Some of our older videos may not have captions. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.2.2. We plan to fix this by December 2025

Some of our images may not have an 'alt-tag'. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1. We plan to fix this by December 2024.

Some of the letters in our homepage A-Z do not reach the colour contrast enhanced requirements. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.6. This element of the site has been designed in this way, the dark grey letters do not have any links or functionality attached to them so by making them less visual we hope to encourage site users to avoid them. We do not plan to change this element in the near future. 

The PDF’s on our CMIS platform do not have page titles or content tags, this fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.2 and 1.3.1,  we are working with our third party supplier to remedy this. 

Disproportionate burden

We are aware that some internal applications and externally hosted systems do not comply with accessibility and usability standards. Some are old software that we cannot easily change. We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues listed below and believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations: 

• document library for our planning service (volume of scanned PDFs) 

We are legally required to publish planning policy documents for our Local Plan and most of these documents are PDFs and maps set to a certain required format and may not be fully accessible. 

This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion. 

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with the navigation and accessing information, as well as the interactive tools and transactions. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations due to the amount of policy documents and the cost of fixing them. 

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

PDFs and other documents

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. For example, we do not plan to fix South Staffordshire Design Guide. 

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

Third party content

Where we choose to feature third party content or functionality on our website, we are responsible for ensuring it meets accessibility standards. However, we are not responsible for the accessibility of third-party platforms or content that is neither funded nor developed by us, or under our control. This includes:

• third party websites that we link to from this website and any of our other digital channels
• social media platforms
• data we supply to national databases
• third party content we are legally required to publish but is not in the control of South Staffordshire Council

Our website was launched in March 2023 where we undertook a full content restructure. Doing this has highlighted some areas of further improvement where information and processes can be made fully accessible. 

We will be doing a full audit of PDFs that remain on the website and aim to replace or fix these, where we are able to do so, by December 2025. We also have governance in place so that no further documents are added to our website that don't meet accessibility standards.  

Wherever possible, we plan to provide an accessible HTML version of any new information as the primary source rather than using a PDF. As a minimum we will ensure PDFs published on our website can be fully accessed using the accessibility tools on our website. 

We will continue to work with all newly commissioned third party software providers to ensure their solutions and the online services they provide comply with the latest accessibility regulations.  

Periodically we will assess the accessibility of our website using an independent online assessment, Siteimprove, and carryout remedial actions. 

We are working to ensure that all videos have the correct captions and have governance in place to ensure no further videos are added without correct captions.  

We are working to remove unnecessary images, and where they are necessary, that they have appropriate alt tags and descriptions.  

This statement was prepared on 10th October 2023. It was last reviewed on 6th September 2024

This website was last tested on 26th June 2024 against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard by the Cabinet Office.

Regular tests are carried out by South Staffordshire Council’s Digital Services Team using Siteimprove, our current accessibility score is 83.6/100 following a scan on 9th September 2024.