Website accessibility

By law, we are required to publish an accessibility statement for this website.

Accessibility statement

Using this website

This website is run by North Lincolnshire Safeguarding Adults Board. 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 per cent 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 useful advice to make your device easier to use and can make website accessibility easier for you, should you have a disability.

 

When last checked (08 October 2021), our website was 97 per cent accessible, according to SiteImprove.

However, we know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  •       you can’t modify the line height or spacing of text
  •       some older PDF documents aren’t fully accessible to screen reader software

If you need information on this website in an accessible format email the Safeguarding Adults Board at SafeguardingAdultsBoard@northlincs.gov.uk  .

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

We use SiteImprove to continuously check accessibility compliance for all content on all pages of our www.northlincssab.co.uk website. The site is re-tested every five calendar days.

We test:

  • our main website platform, available at www.northlincssab.co.uk
  • all associated plugins that we use to enhance page content across the site. For example, the general layout of pages in how they look and are laid out, navigation menus, breadcrumbs, sliders etc.

The www.northlincssab.co.uk website was rated as 100 per cent compliant by SiteImprove on 11 November 2019. This rating may fluctuate. We aim to be above 90 per cent compliant at all times, and above the industry average of 78 per cent.

SiteImprove highlights issues that cause reductions in compliance. We aim to fix these within 10 working days wherever possible. Any exceptions are noted within other sections of this Access Statement.

The Safeguarding Adults Board 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 partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Issues with technology

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be marked up so they’re accessible to a screen reader.

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 have created a register of PDFs which are essential for service delivery and are working through these to create HTML pages and forms. This work will be completed by 23 September 2024.

Issues with images, video, and audio

It’s not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.4 (orientation).

It’s not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4 (resize text).

Third party content

This site sometimes includes third party content and functionality. This may direct you to a related service, a partner we work with, or supporting documentation. We cannot always guarantee its accessibility in these cases.

We understand that the regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018, if they’re not essential to providing our services. However, if you need information in an alternative format, email the Safeguarding Adults Board at SafeguardingAdultsBoard@northlincs.gov.uk .

Accessibility needs are actively considered as part of designing any new content, transactions and services. We follow GDS content design principles where possible and we understand the importance of inclusive design.

We’re also reviewing our existing content with an initial focus on the most popular tasks. For example, inaccessible PDFs on our most popular webpages will be made accessible before those on our less popular webpages.

We regularly monitor accessibility compliance using the SiteImprove product and we will resolve issues that arise wherever possible.

We also respond to customer feedback and use this to make things better wherever possible.

We’re working with the providers of third party systems and plugins to ensure they are either compliant, replaced or removed.

This statement was prepared on 11 November 2019. It was last updated on 08 October 2021.

We want 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, email The Safeguarding Adults Board at SafeguardingAdultsBoard@northlincs.gov.uk .
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).
Find out about other ways to contact us on our contact us page.

 

More information about accessing our website

How do I use the access keys for my browser?

We know that users make use of a wide range of different internet browsers. To find out how to make use of access keys we have supplied instructions for the main browsers in use.

To use these access keys follow the instructions below.

Internet Explorer version 8 and below (PC)
Hold down the ALT key, press the number or letter of the access key, release both keys then press ENTER

Internet Explorer 9 and above (PC)
Hold down the ALT key and press the number or letter of the access key

Internet Explorer (Mac)
Hold down the CTRL key and press the number or letter of the access key

Netscape (PC)
Hold down the ALT key and press the number or letter of the access key

Firefox (PC)
Hold down the Shift and ALT keys and press the number or letter of the access key

Firefox (Mac)
Hold down the CTRL key and press the number or letter of the access key, for version 14.0.1 and higher Hold down the CTRL and Option keys and press the number or letter of the access key

Safari (PC)
Hold down the ALT key and press the number or letter of the access key

Safari (Mac)
Hold down the CTRL and Option keys and press the number or letter of the access key

Chrome (PC)
Hold down the Alt key and press the number or letter of the access key

Chrome (Mac)
Hold down the CTRL and Option keys and press the number or letter of the access key.

Although not strictly text-only, these pages are quicker to download and useful if you don’t need the images or if you are on a slow connection.
We aim to make our website as easy to read as possible and follow the Plain English principles. We are constantly working to improve our website and make it easier to understand.

We aim to provide content in html format where possible. Where we have to use different formats this will be because:

  • the information is too long or too complex for a webpage
  • the content is an official council document, for example strategy documents or meeting minutes
  • the document is needed in its original format – for example, an event timetable

We are working to improve the accessibility of our documents.

Where possible we try to provide downloadable documents in the following formats:

PDF – A reader can be downloaded free from the Adobe website (full instructions for downloading the reader are provided)
XLS/XLSX – A reader can be downloaded free from the Microsoft website – XLS viewer (full instructions for downloading the reader are provided)
DOC/DOCX – A reader can be downloaded free from the Microsoft website – DOC viewer (full instructions for downloading the reader are provided)