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Accessibility Statement

Accessibility statement for Stockton Learning and Skills Service website

This website is run by Stockton-on-Tees Borough 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 have also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

Visit the AbilityNet website which 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 PDF and Word documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • The colour of some text does not sufficiently contrast with its background colour
  • Some third party websites which this site links too may not be fully accessible

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 or braille:

Email webmaster@stockton.gov.uk or call 01642 524581

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 10 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, email webmaster@stockton.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 are not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Stockton-on-Tees Borough 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. The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons:

PDFs and other documents

Some PDF and Word documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software. This fails WCAG A criterion 1.3.1

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing information about our services, for example our learner handbook. By September 2021, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Issues with text

The colour of the text and the colour of the background are not in sufficient contrast to each other and therefore it could be hard for people with moderate visual impairments to read it This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3.

Interactive tools and transactions

Some of our forms are built and hosted through third party software and ‘skinned’ to look like our website. We will work with our providers to make the forms as accessible as possible, however some of these applications are out of our control. Accessibility will be a factor on procuring third-party applications in the future.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are working to develop our forms and make our pdfs accessible. We are aiming to complete this by September 2021.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 22/12/2020. It was last reviewed on 03/03/21.

This website was last tested on 03/03/21