Accessibility statement for Walsall Council SEND Local Offer

This accessibility statement applies to https://send.walsall.gov.uk/

This website is run by Walsall 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 using browser or device settings
  • zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using a keyboard or 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 this website is

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

  • some content does not have sufficient colour contrast
  • videos on this website do not have a descriptive transcript or an audio description
  • captions of some of the videos do not include sounds to provide additional context
  • some of the PDFs are hard to read due to low colour contrast 
  • some images contain text that is not described
  • some pages have incorrect heading structure
  • updates to content are not announced to screen reader users
  • some images do not have image descriptions 

Tell us if you need information on this website in a different format. In your message, include:

  • the web address (URL) of the content
  • your name and email address
  • the format you need (for example, BSL, large print, accessible PDF, audio recording, easy read or braille)

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

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

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

We are working on our content and will continue to make this more readable. All of our pages let you provide feedback to us and we encourage you to tell us what you think.

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, let us know via:

  • feedback buttons on pages
  • feedback button on a BETA banner at the top of the page to report how you find the look and feel and navigation of our pages · email: webproject@walsall.gov.uk
  • phone: +44 1922 650000
  • visitor address: Walsall Council, The Civic Centre, Walsall, WS1 1TP

We will respond to feedback within 5 working days.

Enforcement procedure

If you contact us with a complaint and you’re not happy with how we respond, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

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’).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Walsall 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 

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard. This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 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

YouTube videos

  1. Captions. Captions are automatically generated and are not checked on errors or spelling. This does not meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.2.2: Captions (Prerecorded). We plan to amend this by November 2025.
  2. Transcripts. Transcripts are automatically generated and are not checked on errors or spelling. This does not meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.2.3: Audio Description or Media Alternative (Prerecorded). We plan to amend this by November 2025.
  3. Audio description.  Some videos have significant visual content that is not included in captions or narration. To remediate this, an audio description is needed. This is currently missing. This does not meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.2.5: Audio Descriptions (Prerecorded). We plan to amend this by November 2025.

PDF documents

Some of our PDFs are not formatted so they’re accessible to a screen reader. Some errors may include, missing:

  1. some of the PDF’s contain images without alternative text. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1 Non text content. We plan to amend this by September 2025.
  2. PDF documents should be tagged to mark the meaning and structure of their elements. If these tags are missing, this doesn't meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.3.1. Info and Relationships. We plan to amend this by September 2025.
  3. some parts of PDF’s do not have sufficient contrast between the text and background colours. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.3 Contrast minimum. We plan to amend this by September 2025.

 

Webpages

  1. some images are missing alternative text. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1 Non text content. We plan to amend this by July 2025.
  2. some heading levels have been marked up incorrectly. This may impact Blind or low vision users. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.3.1 Info and relationships. We plan to amend this by July 2025.
  3. some parts of the website do not have sufficient contrast between the text and background colours. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum). We plan to amend this by July 2025.
  4. some images contain text within them. These cannot be read by screen reader users. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.4.5 Images of Text. We plan to amend this by July 2025.
  5. some interactive elements do not specify a name, role or value. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role and Value). We plan to amend this by July 2025.
  6. some status and error messages are not announced in the correct format for screen reader users. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 4.1.3 Status message. We plan to amend this by July 2025.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 31 October 2023. It was last reviewed on 18 December 2024.

This website was last tested on 05 November 2024. The test was carried out by the accessibility team in Walsall Council. The tests included:

  • a mixture of simple manual checks and automated tests to find only the most common barriers to users with accessibility needs
  • manual checks using each page without a mouse, viewing the page at different zoom settings, and simulating viewing the page on a small screen

The automated tests were completed using the latest version of Axe and WAVE.

Tests were completed using different settings in the Internet Explorer browser on Lenovo ThinkPad with a 13-inch screen.