Accessibility statement
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Accessibility statement overview
Accessibility statement for www.barnet.gov.uk and third party websites
This statement applies to Barnet Council websites and third party web applications and websites
This website is run by London Borough of Barnet.
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 400% 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 advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
How accessible is this website
This website is partially accessible with the following issues:
- navigation by keyboard will occasionally not show the current focus
- many of our PDF, Word and Excel documents on the website don’t currently meet accessibility standards
- some links do not resize on mobile devices
- our A to Z of Services has low contrast between the letters that are linked and those that aren't
- between this text and it does not show when it is focussed
- the homepage news carousel controls may be covered over when text is set to its largest size
- some visible labels are not read out by screen readers
- some elements of our pages may be incorrectly labelled
- mobile screen reader users may not be made aware of the navigation menu status
- screen readers users may not be able to sort search results
Fully compliant sites
The following Barnet sites are fully compliant:
- Working with children in Barnet
- Barnet's supplier portal
- Barnet my account
- Website resident feedback survey hosted by Hotjar
Fully compliant third-party sites:
Third-party sites that have their own fully compliant accessibility statements:
- Engage Barnet Engage Barnet statement
- Barnet library catalogue Library statement
- Freedom of Information requests and complaints forms Civica statement
Partially compliant sites
We are working with the providers of these sites to ensure full compliance:
- Barnet Council
- Democracy in Barnet
- Barnet EventApp
- Penalty charge notice viewer
- Payment portal
- Planning applications search
The following third-party sites have their own partially compliant accessibility statements:
- One Digital online forms - One digital statement
- Idox digital platform housing forms - Idox statement
- Barnet parking permits Parking permits statement
- Barnet overdrive Overdrive statement
- Barnet borough photos Borough photos statement
- Borrow box Borrow box statement
- Penalty charge notice payments
- Tennis clubs in Barnet Tennis clubs statement
- Barnet procurement portal Procurement portal statement
- Apply4 app Apply 4 statement
- Barnet open data Open data statement
Third party websites that are not compliant
We are currently working with the suppliers of the following sites to ensure their compliance:
- Barnet job vacancies
- Barnet open revenue portal
- Transforming Brent Cross Cricklewood
- One You Barnet
- Barnet Boost
- Barnet safeguarding children partnership
- Barnet 0 to19 early help service
- Barnet local offer Barnet local offer statement
- Barnet homes Barnet homes statement
- Pay360 Pay360 statement
- Barnet Noise reporting form
What to do if you can’t access parts of this website
If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille email webmaster@barnet.gov.uk
We’ll consider your request and get back to you.
Reporting accessibility problems with this website
We’re always looking 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, contact: webmaster@barnet.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’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person
Hearing loops are available in our reception areas. Find out how to contact us
Contact us using our video British Sign Language interpretation service
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
London Borough of Barnet 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 currently partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.
Non-accessible content
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
The content listed is non-accessible for the following reasons.
PDF and MS Office documents don’t currently meet accessibility standards
They do not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 2.4.5 in multiple ways.
We will be conducting a full review of our PDF estate during 2024 in order to address these issues.
Resizing of links on mobile devices
Link text to external websites may not resize correctly on some mobile devices.
This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 1.4.4 Resize text.
We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of June 2024.
Visible label not connected to form field in code in the search results, sort results by field
This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 1.3.1 Info and relationships
We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of June 2024.
Low contrast between active and inactive links in the A to Z of Services in the footer
A to Z of Services in the footer uses colour alone to distinguish between active and inactive links, yet the contrast ratio between the active links (#007078) and the inactive links (#595859) is just 1.21
This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 1.4.1 Use of colour
We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of June 2024.
Keyboard tab becomes lost on some pages
Tab becomes lost for one tab after tabbing away from the 'consultation on local issues' link.
This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 2.4.7 Focus visible
We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of June 2024.
Visible label for search input field is not included in the accessible name
The visible label of the search input field 'Search our website' is not included in the accessible name which is 'Search input field'.
This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 2.5.3 Label in name
We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of June 2024.
Visible label for the Google translate functionality is not included in the accessible name
The visible label 'Language' is not included in the accessible name 'Google translate' on the Language dropdown functionality in the header.
This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria
We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of June 2024.
Visible label for search input field in the main content is not included in the accessible name
The visible label for the search input field in the main content 'Search our website' is not included in the accessible name 'Search input field'.
This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 2.5.3 Label in name
We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of June 2024.
Visible label for select field is not included in the accessible name on the Search page
'Sort results by'. The visible label is not included in the accessible name.
This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 2.5.3 Label in name
We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of June 2024.
ARIA attributes not allowed on element
Homepage has five instances of elements with ARIA attributes which aren't allowed on that element type, for example, the pagination buttons have an attribute of aria-selected="true".
This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 4.1.2 Name, role, value
We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of June 2024.
ARIA attributes with invalid values
On the homepage the buttons on the news carousel have ARIA attributes with invalid values, for example, the buttons have an attribute with a value of aria-controls="Slide 1.
This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 4.1.2 Name, role, value
We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of June 2024.
Search button has an invalid ARIA attribute
The search button has an invalid ARIA attribute, aria-role="Search button".
This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 4.1.2 Name, role, value
We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of June 2024.
Screen reader user not made aware if the current status of the burger navigation is collapsed or expanded
This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 4.1.2 Name, role, value
We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of June 2024.
No accessible name on the ‘Sort results by’ field on the search page
This does not comply with WCAG 2.1 criteria 4.1.2 Name, role, value
We are working with our design agency to fix this by the end of June 2024.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
PDF and other documents
Some of our PDF, Word and Excel documents are essential to providing our services.
For example, we have PDF documents with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.
Many of our older PDF, Word and Excel documents don’t meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).
The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDF or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.
How we tested this website
This website was fully tested on 29 September 2020.
The test was carried out by London Borough of Barnet Digital Web team using the SiteImprove tool and the Axe tool.
We tested our main website platform, available at www.barnet.gov.uk
Ongoing testing of our website
We use an automated accessibility checker, Silktide. This tool is used to check the accessibility of our website every week.
We are using Silktide to help us with our PDF accessibility work.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
We are working to constantly improve the accessibility of this website.
This statement was prepared on 1 September 2019
It was last updated on 4 April 2024.