Accessibility statement

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Accessibility statement overview

Accessibility statement for www.barnet.gov.uk and third party websites

This statement applies to Barnet Council websites and third party web applications and websites

This website is run by London Borough of Barnet.

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 400% 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.

How accessible is this website

This website is partially accessible with the following issues:

  • many of our PDF, Word and Excel documents on the website don’t currently meet accessibility standards
  • some links do not resize on mobile devices
  • our A to Z of Services has low contrast between the letters that are linked and those that aren't
  • the homepage twitter feed has low contrast text, it is not possible to increase the spacing between this text and it does not show when it is focussed
  • the homepage news carousel controls may be covered over when text is set to its largest size
  • navigation by keyboard will occasionally not show the current focus
  • some visible labels are not read out by screen readers
  • some elements of our pages may be incorrectly labelled
  • mobile screen reader users may not be made aware of the navigation menu status
  • screen readers users may not be able to sort search results

Fully compliant sites

The following Barnet sites are fully compliant:

Fully compliant third-party sites:

Third-party sites that have their own fully compliant accessibility statements:

Partially compliant sites

We are working with the providers of these sites to ensure full compliance:

The following third-party sites have their own partially compliant accessibility statements:

Third party websites that are not compliant

We are currently working with the suppliers of the following sites to ensure their compliance:

What to do if you can’t access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille email webmaster@barnet.gov.uk

We’ll consider your request and get back to you.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website.

If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: webmaster@barnet.gov.uk.

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

Hearing loops are available in our reception areas.  Find out how to contact us

Contact us using our video British Sign Language interpretation service

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

London Borough of Barnet is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This website is currently partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.

Non-accessible content

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

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

PDF and MS Office documents don’t currently meet accessibility standards

They do not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 2.4.5 in multiple ways.

We will be conducting a full review of our PDF estate during 2023 in order to address these issues.

Resizing of links on mobile devices

Link text to external websites may not resize correctly on some mobile devices.

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 1.4.4 Resize text.

We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of 2023.

Visible label not connected to form field in code in the search results, sort results by field

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 1.3.1 Info and relationships

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

Low contrast between active and inactive links in the A to Z of Services in the footer

A to Z of Services in the footer uses colour alone to distinguish between active and inactive links, yet the contrast ratio between the active links (#007078) and the inactive links (#595859) is just 1.21

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 1.4.1 Use of colour

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

Keyboard tab becomes lost on the Home page

Tab becomes lost for one tab after tabbing away from the 'consultation on local issues' link.

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 2.4.7 Focus visible

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

Keyboard tab becomes lost on the Garden waste collection page

The keyboard focus becomes lost sporadically when tabbing down the content, for example after tabbing away from the link 'Success of the garden waste service'.

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 2.4.7 Focus visible

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

Keyboard tab becomes lost on the Our contact details page

Keyboard focus becomes lost sporadically when tabbing down the content, for example after tabbing away from the link 'Planning and building'.

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 2.4.7 Focus visible

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

Keyboard tab becomes lost on the Accessibility Statement page

Keyboard tab becomes lost for one tab after tabbing away from links such as 'What we're doing to improve accessibility’, ‘AbilityNet', 'Pay360' and 'webmaster@barnet.gov.uk'.

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 2.4.7 Focus visible

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

Visible label for search input field is not included in the accessible name

The visible label of the search input field 'Search our website' is not included in the accessible name which is 'Search input field'.

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 2.5.3 Label in name

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

Visible label for the Google translate functionality is not included in the accessible name

The visible label 'Language' is not included in the accessible name 'Google translate' on the Language dropdown functionality in the header.

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

Visible label for search input field in the main content is not included in the accessible name

The visible label for the search input field in the main content 'Search our website' is not included in the accessible name 'Search input field'.

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 2.5.3 Label in name

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

Visible label for select field is not included in the accessible name on the Search page

'Sort results by'. The visible label is not included in the accessible name.

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 2.5.3 Label in name

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

ARIA attributes not allowed on element

Homepage has five instances of elements with ARIA attributes which aren't allowed on that element type, for example, the pagination buttons have an attribute of aria-selected="true". 

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 4.1.2 Name, role, value

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

ARIA attributes with invalid values

On the hompeage the buttons on the news carousel have ARIA attributes with invalid values, for example, the buttons have an attribute with a value of aria-controls="Slide 1. 

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 4.1.2 Name, role, value

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

Search button has an invalid ARIA attribute

The search button has an invalid ARIA attribute, aria-role="Search button".

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 4.1.2 Name, role, value

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

Screen reader user not made aware if the current status of the burger navigation is collapsed or expanded

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 4.1.2 Name, role, value

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

No accessible name on the ‘Sort results by’ field on the search page

This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 4.1.2 Name, role, value

We are working with our design agency to fix this by end 2023.

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

PDF and other documents

Some of our PDF, Word and Excel documents are essential to providing our services.

For example, we have PDF documents 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.

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

The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDF or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.

How we tested this website

This website was fully tested on 29 September 2020.

The test was carried out by London Borough of Barnet Digital Web team using the SiteImprove tool and the Axe tool.

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

Ongoing testing of our website

We use an automated accessibility checker, Silktide. This tool is used to check the accessibility of our website every week.

We are using Silktide to help us with our PDF accessibility work.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are working to constantly improve the accessibility of this website.

    This statement was prepared on 1 September 2019

    It was last updated on 7 September 2023.