Website accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to the Salford City Council website (www.salford.gov.uk). 

This website is run by Salford City Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • 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)

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

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

Translation

If you would like information on our website translated into another language, you may find one of the services listed below meets your needs. However, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of any external website or free website translators.

How accessible is this website?

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

  • You cannot modify the spacing of text
  • Live video streams do not have captions
  • Some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
  • On some pages HTML is used to format content
  • Some downloadable documents (PDF/Word documents) aren’t fully accessible to screen reader software
  • 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

What to do if you cannot access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format please email webmaster@salford.gov.uk

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

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 webmaster@salford.gov.uk

It would be helpful if your email contained the following:

  • The URL(s)(web address) of the page(s) that you are having difficulties with
  • How you are accessing the site, for example on your phone, on a laptop, on a tablet
  • If on a laptop or tablet, which browser you are using, for example Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome or Safari
  • The nature of your disability, if any
  • A description of the problem

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).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

If you’d like to phone us please see our how to phone us page.

To visit us in person see our how to find us page for our office locations.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Salford City 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

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

Issues with videos

Some of our videos that we have on our site are not captioned, or may rely on auto-generated captions and may not be completely accurate.

All new videos will have captions or a transcript.

Issues with social media feeds

On some of our pages we embed social media feeds which includes third-party content that we do not have control of, and may not be accessible.

Issues with PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents don’t 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).

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 are working our way through these and plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards unless we determine that they represent a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations.

Issues with text

The same link text is used for links going to different destinations; this fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (link purpose (in context)).

The colour of the text and the colour of the background are not in sufficient contrast to each other; this fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (contrast (minimum)).

We are working our way through these issues.

Issue with formatting

HTML is used to format content (for example presentational attributes such as 'border', 'align', or 'bgcolor' are used); this fail WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (info and relationships).

We are working our way through these issues. 

Issues with forms

Keyboard users will struggle to complete some of our online forms, without a mouse.

We are working our way through this issue.

Issues with third-party applications

We require that any new third party systems we commission for the website are Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 AA compliant. However, we use some third-party applications which might not all be fully accessible. Third party applications are partly or wholly out of our control and so may not conform to the same levels of accessibility as the rest of the website.

We monitor the accessibility of these sites and ask suppliers to fix accessibility issues which arise.

Disproportionate burden

We have not identified anything that qualifies as disproportionate burden as of yet.

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

PDFs and other downloadable documents published before 23 September 2018

The accessibility regulations (legislation.gov.uk) don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.

Live video

Live video streams do not have captions. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.4 (captions - live).

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

Online maps

Online maps, for example our interactive maps.

How we tested this website

This website was last tested on 19 January 2022. The test was carried out using a combination of automated software, using Siteimprove, and manual testing by Salford City Council using a suite of browser-based accessibility reporting tools and the NVDA screen reader.

We used sample pages that included all the different types of functionality on the website. The sample of pages reviewed in the audit was selected using the following criteria:

  • Pages common to many websites, for example, home page and contact us
  • Pages with variations in layout and functionality
  • Most visited pages
  • Selecting pages at random

We tested our main website platform, available at www.salford.gov.uk

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have monitoring in place via Siteimprove to review the accessibility of the site on an ongoing basis. We use this monitoring to identify and fix any new issues that arise.

We are replacing PDF/Word documents with web pages and with online forms.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 10 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 19 January 2022.

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