Main content

Accessibility

Accessibility statement

This statement applies to content published on the www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk domain.

Epping Forest District Council (EFDC) is fully committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability. We are constantly working to improve the accessibility and usability of our website by adhering to AA Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1.

We aim to improve our accessibility to remove barriers and maximise inclusion.

For example, that means you should be able to:

Change colours, contrast levels and fonts
Zoom in up to 400% without problems
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)
Read subtitles on archived webcasts and videos
Most pages are written in plain English

The AbilityNet website has advice on making your device easier to use.

How accessible this website is

Parts of this website are not fully accessible.

Some pages and document attachments are not written in plain English
PDF’s published before 23 September 2018 may not be accessible. Those published after this date will be accessible
Subtitles are provided for some live video and audio content
Audio description is not provided for pre-recorded video content

Website testing

This website was tested on 20 July 2019 by Shaw Trust, both technically and manually to ensure the highest possible standards of accessibility are maintained.

The website was tested by a team of experienced pan-disabled testers. The team is made up of individuals with different disabilities to cover the widest range of accessibility barriers as possible. Each testing team consists of the following:

Keyboard only user
Voice activation user
Screen reader user
Low vision user
Colour blind user
Deaf or hard of hearing user
Learning difficulties user

Amendments to the website have been made in conjunction with our website hosts CIVIC.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

Email Media@eppingforestdc.gov.uk
Call 01992 564000 and ask for the corporate communications team

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

Accessibility regulations

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).

Epping Forest District Council is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This statement was prepared and reviewed on 25 April 2023.

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, contact:

Email Media@eppingforestdc.gov.uk
Call 01992 564000 and ask for the corporate communications team

Enforcement procedure

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

Our offices are open Monday to Thursday between 9am and 5.15 pm, and on Friday between 9am and 5pm.

By phone 01992 564000.

Find out how to contact us on our contact us page.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Epping Forest District 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:

PDF’s published before 23 September 2018 may not be accessible. Those published after this date will be accessible
Subtitles are not provided for some live video and audio content
Audio description is not provided for pre-recorded video content

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Contrast

WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast (minimum) – some of our pages at 200% zoom do not have sufficient colour contrast. We are working on this and expect it to be fixed by 30 June 2023.

Audio description

We do not provide an audio description for prerecorded videos. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.5 (Audio Description Prerecorded). We aim to add audio descriptions to prerecorded videos by May 2024.

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

PDFs

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.

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix ‘Statement of accounts 2012-2013’.

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

Live video

We are not able to add captions to live video streams on YouTube because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are developing a new website within the LocalGov Drupal framework to incorporate the latest accessibility standards.

Once ready, we will doing a full accessibility audit by Shaw Trust or another independent third party of the new website.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 20 July 2019. It was last reviewed on 25 April 2023.

This website was last tested on 25 April 2023. The test was carried out by our corporate communications team using our Siteimprove software. We regularly run our own reports using the Siteimprove software.

You can read the full accessibility test report – Accessibility score breakdown (pdf 207KB)