Accessibility statement | Sevenoaks District Council

Accessibility statement

We make every effort to ensure our website is easy to use and accessible for everyone.

Change your accessibility settings

View our Reasonable Adjustments Policy

 

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

We are committed to making our websites 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) 2.1 AA standard.

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


Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations.

Online forms

Two of our elections online forms (open register and opt in to go paperless) are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard. These are being replaced with accessible forms and we aim to resolve in 2025.

  • The forms do not have sufficient contrasts between foreground and background colours and are not compliant with WCAG guideline 1.4.6.
  • The forms do not have labels and are not compliant with WCAG guideline 4.1.2

 

Accessibility of our other websites and online services

We use some third party online services and websites to allow customers to interact and transact with us. These include (but are not limited to): paying for Council Tax, applying for licenses, viewing and commenting on planning permission and jobs at the Council.

Not all of these sites and services meet the standards for accessibility and we are engaging with our suppliers to rectify this.

When procuring new online systems, meeting accessibility standards is included in the specification.
 

Disproportionate burden

At this time, we have not identified anything that qualifies as disproportionate burden and we continue to work towards making the website as accessible as possible.
 

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

Many of our older PDFs, Word and Excel documents do not meet accessibility standards, for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).

The natural language of the document is also not always specified in older documents. (WCAG 3.1.1 success criterion 1.1.1 non-text content).

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 and PDF 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.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish on our main site will meet accessibility standards.
 

What we are doing to improve accessibility

  • Training everyone that publishes to the web in creating accessible content
  • Providing guidance to services on creating accessible multimedia content
  • Moving away from PDF documents to web pages
  • Moving away from Word and PDF application form to online forms
  • All new web products are tested for accessibility


Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 30 December 2019. It was last reviewed on 4 November 2024.

A subset of this website was last tested on 30 September 2024 against the WCAG 2.1 AA standard.

The test was carried out by Government Digital Service (part of the Cabinet Office) as part of its monitoring of how well the public sector are meeting the WCAG 2.1 AA standards.

A sample of pages were tested for accessibility. A mixture of simple manual checks and automated tests was used to find only the most common barriers to users with accessibility issues.

Tests were completed using different settings in the Google Chrome browser on Mac OSX with a 13-inch screen.

An audit of web accessibility using a combination of semi-automated evaluation tools and manual evaluation was conducted by Smarter Digital Services in November 2020 to WCAG2.1 AA standard.

 

Testing our websites

Our websites below were tested in June 2024 and were found to be partially compliant with WCAG 2.1 level AA.

The website is also regularly checked for accessibility using the SiteImprove service and a more detailed audit will be conducted in 2025.


Accessibility of third party systems

Accessibility statements from third-party systems used on the Sevenoaks District Council website.

Civica Modern.Gov Council and committee meeting agenda and minutes; Council, councillor and town and parish contact details https://cds.sevenoaks.gov.uk

  • The majority of their pages were compliant for AA standard accessibility under WCAG. There is one exception regarding the third-party jQuery-ui date picker, which is detailed as non-accessible
  • These improvements are available to customers in B1505 and are available as a hotfix for customers who are on B1504. It is their preference that customers upgrade to B1505 as the hotfix for 1504 will not be made available until after a review of current customer versions
  • Some information and documents provided by third parties may not be accessible

Public Access for Planning, Building Control and Licensing

Online planning, building control and licensing applications are provided by Idox’s Public Access product, version 3.2, which is currently WCAG 2.1AA compliant. Our websites are:

Parking Gateway to pay or challenge a Penalty Charge Notice

Citizen Space (Delib) to comment on the Local Plan and other Council consultations. This site is currently WCAG 2.1AA compliant.

Jobs go public for job vacancies and access to online job applications.

Council Tax and benefits self-service to register for an account to pay council tax, business rates or apply for housing benefit or council tax support.

EventApp to apply to hold a public event in the District

Victoria forms for Licensing

State their online forms are fully compliant with the web content guidelines version 2.1AA standard www.victoriaforms.com/formsaccessibility

 

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, please email communications@sevenoaks.gov.uk.