Our website accessibility statement, access to our information and services, where we know our site doesn't meet accessibility regulations and our plan to fix accessibility issues.

Accessibility statement for bristol.gov.uk

Introduction

This accessibility statement applies to web content and forms on the main Bristol City Council website. It excludes some applications and tools that we use but it includes the common user journeys:

  • online payments
  • job search
  • paying council tax
  • reporting an issue with bins

This website is run by Bristol City Council. It's designed to be used by as many people as possible. The text should be clear and simple to understand. You should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 300% and read the text
  • 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

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use, if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

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

  • some documents have missing headings, missing tables of contents or contain complex tables that could be difficult to navigate using assistive technology
  • some form inputs are more difficult to complete because form inputs don't have auto-complete values for commonly saved information
  • some form inputs are not keyboard operable
  • the date and time picker on our missed collection form
  • the date picker for registering births is difficult to use
  • on some web forms there is no option to extend the session length and prevent session time out
  • radio buttons on some of our online forms have a focus indicator style that is difficult to see, making it difficult to work out which form field you're on
  • a few buttons and icons have mismatched text and accessible names or missing accessible names
  • some form inputs do not provide clear error suggestions (for example, when a form asks for your date of birth or to register a birth.)

We're always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think were not meeting accessibility requirements contact us.

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.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information in a different format, like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording, British Sign Language or Braille, contact us and tell us:

  • the web address (URL) of the content
  • your name and email address
  • the format you need

Well consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days. Delivery of the alternative format could take longer based on the type of alternative format that you need.

Find contact details for our different services.

Contact us by phone or by visiting us in person

  • We provide a text relay service for people who are d/Deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment but you can speak to our team using BTs text relay app.
  • Phone lines are open 8.30am to 5pm Monday to Thursday, 8.30am to 4.30pm Friday.
  • Sign Video British Sign Language (BSL) Interpreting.
  • BSL Interpreting is available Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm. Face to face BSL interpreting can be arranged in advance of an in person appointment.

Find contact details for our different services.

Visits to our citizen service point

At our citizen service point, we provide:

  • wheelchair access and specially lowered desks
  • mini-loop facilities
  • British Sign Language available through a video link
  • phone interpreters available for customers whose first language is not English.
  • face to face appointments available behind a protective screen
  • free wi-fi
  • free computer access

Technical information about this website's accessibility

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard. We're committed to making our websites accessible in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Non-accessible content

Content that is not accessible is outlined below with details of:

  • where it fails the success criteria
  • planned dates for when issues will be fixed

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations on bristol.gov.uk

Content that's hard to access or not perceivable

Videos without captions

We've added captions to over two thirds of our You Tube video library but some older shared videos lack captions.

This fails success criteria 1.2.2, captions.

We plan to delete videos without captions by August 2023 unless they are essential for delivering one of our public services.

Documents that are hard to read or navigate

Some documents have missing or incorrectly nested headings, a missing table of contents, complex tables or unclear content making them difficult to read or navigate with some kinds of assistive technology.

This fails success criteria 1.3.1, information and relationships.

Essential PDFs will be made more accessible by January 2024. We've assessed that making some documents fully accessible could be a disproportionate burden in terms of cost versus value, but will work to make essential service documents accessible.

Some web pages contain content that doesn't convey enough information or meaning about structure

Some web pages have content that needs better semantic mark up or structure, for example tables without row headers, headings that are not marked up as headings, list content not marked up as a lists or incorrectly nested headings. Some pages contain pseudo-content that's inserted with CSS. This means that some content is not perceivable when a user disables the stylesheet to read or use the page.

This fails success criteria 1.3.1, information and relationships.

We plan to fix semantic content issues on the main site and to resolve template issues by August 2023.

Content that's hard to view when zoomed in

A few web pages and features have content that's difficult to read when you are zoomed in. This occurs in the collection day finder.

This fails success criteria 1.4.10 Reflow

We're investigating a fix in this third party product and hope to fix this by August 2023. We're re-developing our stylesheet into a design system.

Content that's hard to operate or inoperable

No option to extend web form timeout

Some of our web forms don't offer an option to extend the session before timing out. This fails success criteria 2.2.1 Timing Adjustable.

We plan to fix this issue in forms that we build by August 2023.

Content that's not understandable

Language of page

Some of our PDF documents and some web pages for our online payment service do not have the Language of page set to English in the HTML. This fails 3.1.1 Language of Page

We've identified PDFs with missing language attributes and created a backlog that we are working through. We aim to complete this by August 2023.

Content that's hard to read

Some content is technical or difficult to understand as it is not written in clear English.

Most content is designed to meet a lower secondary education reading level.

Some content is designed for business audiences with specific knowledge or expertise. This fails success criteria 3.1.5 (AAA) Reading level.

Accessibility issues for our third-party applications and solutions

Form builder product, Orbeon

We have identified the following fails on success criteria:

  • 1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose. Some common web form inputs are hard to auto-fill correctly because they lack common auto-complete values.
  • 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum). ‘Tell us' links have insufficient contrast. ‘Tell us' error text has insufficient contrast.
  • 2.1.1 Keyboard. Links on ‘tell us about a problem' pages lose focus
  • 2.2.1 Timing Adjustable. ‘Tell us about a problem' form times out
  • 3.2.1 On Focus. Focus moves away from links on ‘tell us about a problem' page
  • 2.4.7 Focus Visible. In some of our web forms, the focus indicator isn't visible before a radio button in a set has been selected. This makes it difficult to operate the radio buttons with a keyboard as you can't always see where you are in the form. It can also make it difficult to see when links have been selected.

We are investigating how the issues can be addressed in our third-party form building solutions. Contact us to be notified when we publish the fix date for this issue.

Jobs website, iTrent

We have identified the following fails on our jobs website on success criteria:

  • 4.1.1 Parsing. Issue with an input tag used as child of a <table> on job search results
  • 4.1.2 Name. role, value. On our job login: Table cells have incorrect aria-required attribute. Some content needs to be better described for assistive technology users. The jobs search page which has a role of list but no list items

We're in discussion with our third party provider to agree a roadmap.

Online payment, E-Capita payment portal

The e-capita payment portal that we use for multiple payment services fails accessibility success criteria:

  • 1.1.1 Non-text Content
  • 1.3.1 Info and Relationships
  • 1.4.13 Content on Hover or Focus
  • 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)
  • 1.4.10 Reflow
  • 2.4.6 Headings and Labels
  • 3.1.1 Language of Page

The cost to fix these issues is relatively high as it requires a large system upgrade. We're in discussion with our third party provider to agree a roadmap.

Residents parking and Clean Air Zone, MiPermit

Accessibility statement for MiPermit

Open data website, ESRI ArcGIS Hub

Our Open Data site sits on an ESRI ArcGIS Hub platform.
Accessibility status report for ArcGIS Hub

Disproportionate burden

We're currently reviewing and updating our disproportionate burden section using supplier quotes and estimates for work required to improve our compliancy with WCAG 2.2 AA success criteria and the public sector accessibility regulations. Contact us to be notified when this section of the statement is updated. 

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

PDFs and other documents

Some of Bristol City Councils older PDFs do not meet accessibility standards. We're working towards making more of our PDFs meet the WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility standards. The public sector accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018, unless they're essential to providing our services.

We're working on a disproportionate burden clause for categories of PDF that are not part of an essential service. We are prioritising improving the accessibility of our documents that:

  • contain information about how to access or use our services
  • are frequently downloaded
  • contain information that has a statutory requirement

We'll ensure that all essential documents will meet accessibility guidelines by January 2024.

Live video

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

Our live meetings are saved to the Bristol City Council Live Meetings YouTube channel on which we have 800 subscribers. When we have 1,000 subscribers, we'll be eligible for live automated captions and can manually edit these auto captions to convey the correct information.

Maps

We do not plan to make our maps accessible as these are exempt from the public sector accessibility regulations.

Where user needs have been identified our design team may use techniques to make maps more accessible to citizens.

We have several maps and archive applications including Fix my street, Pinpoint and argcis. We consider issues identified in some of these solutions that are not map-specific to be within scope of the public sector accessibility regulations and have identified them on our roadmap.

How we test this website

Website testing is carried out by our Web Content and Delivery teams, for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1 level A and level AA.

We carry out manual testing and use several tools, including:

Our main Bristol City Council website was tested as we moved to a new platform in August 2022. 

What we're doing to improve accessibility

We produced an accessible communications policy that covers telephone, face to face and web content communication channels.

We've audited sites and applications internally to find out what we need to do for better compliancy with public sector accessibility regulations.

We're testing each component, style and pattern in our new design system to ensure that it's fully accessible. 

We've developed an accessibility roadmap for our form building solutions. We are working with service owners and their suppliers to identify issues and improve accessibility of our external applications.

We include accessibility checks as part of our platform requirements gathering and procurement processes. We have developed checklists and resources for different teams to help them produce content with accessible foundations.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was last updated on 11 August 2023.