Accessibility

This accessibility statement applies to the Programme Challenger website ( www.programechallenger.co.uk ).

We want everyone to be able to use this website. You might have a better experience if you change the settings on your computer to suit your needs. The site has been built so that 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 or using speech recognition software
• listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use.

Known problems with this site's accessibility

We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible.

• Our crime statistics and data visualisation tools are not accessible by screen readers, screen recognition software and other assistive technology. They do not display well on smaller screens including mobiles and tablets.
• Some parts of our forms (such as checkboxes, radio controls, list boxes and combination boxes) are difficult to use with screen readers such as JAWS and voice command software such as Dragon.
• Some carousel or sliding content may be difficult to understand and operate using screen readers and keyboards.
• If you use the enter key to operate form elements like list boxes, error messages for required fields will display before you submit the form.
• Most older PDF documents aren’t fully accessible to screen readers.
• Some content on our website is not available unless JavaScript is enabled, for example forms and maps and data visualisations.

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

If you can't access something you need on this site, please tell us about it and we will get you what you need in another way:

Online using our accessibility contact form.

To help us understand the problem as quickly as we can, please tell us:

• the web address or title of the page where you found the problem
• what the problem is
• what computer and software you use

This is only for telling us about accessibility problems. If you'd like to contact us about something else, and you need a response, please use our contact page.

If you have made a complaint and you’re not happy with what we did about it, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Programme Challenger 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.

Find out more about the technical accessibility standards we follow.

Non accessible content

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

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

Data visualisations

There are a number of WCAG 2.1 AA non compliances within the data visualisations including:

• missing alternative text on graphics. This doesn’t meet success criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content (Level A)
• information and structure is not always conveyed with native, appropriate or semantic HTML elements. This doesn’t meet success criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A)
• some content doesn’t have enough contrast with foreground and background colours. This doesn’t meet success criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) (Level AA)
• text is not always used to convey information rather than images of text. This doesn’t meet success criterion 1.4.5 Images of Text (Level AA)
• content doesn’t reflow or respond well on smaller screens or with zoomed displays. This doesn’t meet success criterion 1.4.10 Reflow (Level AA)
• tooltip content isn't dismissible, hoverable or persistent. This doesn’t meet success criterion 1.4.13 Content on Hover or Focus (Level AA)
• not all data visualisation content is keyboard accessible. This doesn’t meet success criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A)
• filter options can cause keyboard traps. This doesn’t meet Success Criterion 2.1.2 No Keyboard Trap (Level A)
• the focus order doesn’t always reflect the logical relationships in the content. This doesn’t meet success criterion 2.4.3 Focus Order (Level A)
• not all focusable components have focus visible styles. This doesn’t meet success criterion 2.4.7 Focus Visible (Level AA)
• some form elements don’t have associated labels. This doesn’t meet success criterion 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions (Level A)

Forms

• Most forms within the website rely on JavaScript to display and manage data.
• Some parts of our forms (list boxes and combination boxes) are difficult to operate with a keyboard when using a screen reader. This doesn’t meet success criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A).
• When using the enter key to operate form elements, e.g. list boxes, required field validation messages will display before you submit your data. This doesn’t meet success criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A).
• Form validation and error messages are not read out by some screen readers. This doesn't meet success criterion 3.3.1 Error Identification (Level A).
• Some parts of our forms (such as checkboxes, radio controls, list boxes and combination boxes) are difficult or impossible to use with screen readers such as JAWS and voice command software such as Dragon. This doesn’t meet success criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A).

Maps

Some map buttons and components don’t have focus visible styles. This doesn’t meet success criterion 2.4.7 Focus Visible (Level AA).

Content

Some page content doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 compliance including:

• some carousel/sliding content may be difficult to operate for screen reader and keyboard users. Not all buttons and links have focus visible styles and current slides are not communicated. Carousel paging button automatically initiates a change of context which isn't communicated to screen reader users. These issues don’t meet the following success criteria: 3.2.1 On Focus (Level A), 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A), 2.1.2 No keyboard Trap (Level A), 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) and 2.4.7 Focus Visible (Level AA).
• embedded YouTube video iframes do not always contain a title attribute and this content may be difficult to for screen reader users to perceive and access. This doesn’t meet success criteria 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks (Level A) and 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A).
• some HTML parsing errors may occur in source code especially when copied from external sources. Some duplicate IDs have been identified but are not thought to impact significantly on users. This does not meet success criterion 4.1.1 Parsing (Level A).

Keyboard operation

• some focus visible styles (e.g. on blue buttons and search boxes) do not provide enough contrast from default states or background colours and may be difficult to locate. This doesn’t meet success criterion 1.4.11 Non-Text Contrast (Level AA).
• the skip links cause a keyboard trap in older version of IE and on wide displays the skip links are not always visible against the white background. This doesn’t meet success criterion 2.1.2 No Keyboard Trap (Level A).
• using the Escape key to cancel out of page elements such as dialogue windows or for use with assistive technology menus, will result in a redirect away from the website and form data will be lost. For security and privacy reasons pressing the escape key on any page triggers the 'Leave this site' link shortcut and causes a redirection away from this website. This is in place to give vulnerable users the option to leave the site as quickly as possible. This doesn’t meet success criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A).

Things we might not fix

We are working to fix most of the accessibility problems with this website by September 2020. But there are some things which we may not fix because they would take too much time relative to the benefit to our users.

Data visualisation

The tools we use to create our interactive data visualisations don’t provide a text alternative (such as a table) to the visual data representation. This makes the data inaccessible to some people. We are reviewing our data visualisation tools but we may not be able to fix this in a reasonable time.

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents are not fully accessible, for example, they may not be easy to read using a screen reader.

By September 2020, we aim to have replaced or fixed any PDF and Word documents which are essential to our services, like forms published as Word documents.

We don’t plan to fix every older non-essential document like old campaign PDFs.

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

How we tested this website

This website was last tested by an external audit in September 2020, using:

• automated testing – the quickest way to catch 20% to 50% of potential issues
• manual testing – using assistive technology tools to test the website with a social focus on areas with known problems
• user testing – asking users with accessibility needs to test the website, and learning from their feedback

We continually monitor and test the accessibility of our site and have made fixing and improving the accessibility of the site part of our daily work. This statement was first written on 03 September 2020. It was last updated on 03 September 2020.