Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to www.hull.gov.uk

This website is run by Hull City Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. AbilityNet has advice on how you can do this and on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

For example, that means you will be able to -

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)
change colours
change contrast levels
change fonts and font sizes

Access AbilityNet website here

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible including -

most PDF documents are not fully accessible
certain parts of our forms need improving. We will work with the third party supplier to address this on third party sites and we are working to improve the Hull site
we’re also aware that some third party websites or systems that this website links to, or integrates with, are not accessible and may have issues. Where possible we are working with these suppliers to address these, and other accessibility issues
some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
there’s a limit to how far you can magnify the maps on our location pages

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
braille

Please use email address info@hullcc.gov.uk or telephone us on 01482 300 300

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within five working days dependent on the urgency of your request.

If you cannot access the map on our ‘contact us’ page, call us or email us for directions.

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 –

email info@hullcc.gov.uk
call 01482 300 300

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 you can contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Visit the Equality Advisory and Support Service website

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

We are committed to making our website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

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

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

PDFs

Some PDF documents are not fully accessible as they are not machine-readable. We are working towards amending the existing PDFs (post 2018) and ensuring processes are in place to ensure newly published PDFs meet accessibility standards. Currently, some existing PDFs fail to meet the following criteria -

WCAG A 1.1.1 - All non-text content that is presented to the user has a text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose
WCAG A 1.3.1 - Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available in text
WCAG A 2.4.2 - Web pages have titles that describe topic or purpose
WCAG A 3.1.1 - The default human language of each web page can be programmatically determined

Images and other non text content

Some non text content is not accessible via screen readers and keyboard navigation.

WCAG AA 1.1.1 - Some images and other non text content must have sufficient alt text to enable effective access to content via screen readers.
WCAG AA 1.4.5 - Images of text should not be used unless text cannot be formatted to the same effect.

Forms

Some of our forms need improving. We will work with the third party supplier to address this on third party sites, and we are working to improve the Hull site in relation to these criteria –

WCAG A 1.3.1 - Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined or are available in text
WCAG A 2.1.1 - All functionality of the content is operable through a keyboard interface
WCAG AA 1.3.5 - The purpose of each input field collecting information about the user can be programmatically determined. This includes the correct use of the autocomplete attribute
WCAG 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value - ARIA attributes must conform to valid values

iFrames/embedded third party content

We’re also aware that some third party websites or systems that this website links to, or integrates with (such as Google Maps), are not accessible and may have issues, such as –

WCAG A 1.1.1 - All non-text content that is presented to the user has a text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose
WCAG A 2.4.1 - A mechanism is available to bypass blocks of content that are repeated on multiple Web pages
WCAG AA 1.4.3 – The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1

Contrast and element identification

To ensure different content elements can be easily distinguished from each other, and functions more easily determined, we are making improvements to our web styling to improve colour contrast and to make links/buttons more distinguishable from other content. We are also improving keyboard navigation by improving focus This is to comply with the following criteria -

WCAG A 1.1.1 - All non-text content that is presented to the user has a text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose

Third party sites

We use third party providers to provide some additional functions and tasks for our web users, such as forms, online payments, mapping etc. We are working with these suppliers to address any accessibility issues with their products, to ensure we provide a robust and accessible solution for you across all of our online services.

Some of the issues we are aware of include -

no ‘skip to main content’ option
it is not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content
it is not always possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping
there is insufficient contrast between text and background colours
some forms are not labelled correctly
the content cannot be listened to using a screen reader
text on images where no alt text is provided
some links use duplicated text
some controls do not change appearance when selected

Some embedded content or widgets are added to our site as it is a legal requirement to do so. We are dependent on the organisation to provide an accessible version and are unable to remove this inaccessible content from our site.

Each third party supplier has published their own information for their product and their timescales for corrective action to be taken.

Housing portal

Our supplier has undertaken a thorough accessibility audit of the portal and identified a number of areas that failed to meet the the accessibility standards. They have carried out development of the portal to ensure compliance with the accessibility standards and these enhancements have been included at version 6.21 of the system. This is available and we are due to update to this version of the housing portal in June 2021 as part of a system replacement project.

Payments portal

We are working with our 3rd party supplier to ensure our payments portal is accessible for all our customers. The current version of the portal is not styled in a way the meets the accessibility standards and the system itself does not meet the required standards. Its is also unable to developed to be compliant. We have purchased a new version of the portal which is a compliant version and it will replace our current version as soon as possible. This new version will also include our updated and accessible web styling.

Customer portal

We are working with our 3rd party supplier to ensure our customer portal is as accessible as possible for our customers. It currently requires an update of the styling to meet the standards.

Council Tax an benefits portal

We are working with our 3rd party supplier to ensure this portal is as accessible as possible for our customers. The portal was updated in December 2019 to ensure it met the WAG AA standards however it is acknowledged that due to the complex questioning structure of some of the forms there may well be scenarios where the format needs further update. Any identified issues will be amended and updated in the next available release. We are currently working on updating the styling of the product to ensure the standards are met.

Mapping system

We are working with our 3rd party supplier to ensure our mapping system is as accessible as possible for our customers. It currently requires an update of the styling to meet the standards.

Appointments/booking system

We are currently working with the provider to update the web styling on this system to ensure it meets the accessibility standards as well as identifying any areas that do not meet the requirements.

Content that’s not within the scope of 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 these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

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 Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

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

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 22 September 2020 and amended on the 14th April 2021. This website was last tested on 14th April 2021. The test was carried out by us using the Silktide system. All of the pages for this site were tested.