Accessibility
Accessibility Statement for West Lothian Council's website
This accessibility statement applies to the West Lothian Council website (opens new window)
We are committed to making our website as accessible as possible and hope you find it easy to use.
The website is designed to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 (opens new window)
Website Readability and Usability
This website is run by West Lothian 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
- zoom in up to 300% 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
Most of the above functions can be achieved using our in-built software provided by ReciteMe and described below, or using your own software.
We have made every effort to ensure this web site is easily readable using plain English. Our web team regularly review content and provide training and recommendations to all our content publishers to ensure all web content is written in a format which is as easy to understand where possible.
Recite Me Accessibility Tool Bar
Recite Me helps people to access our website to do the things they need to do, like find information about how to access our service by making complaints, access publications and read news.
The Recite Me toolbar has a unique range of functions. You can use it to:
- Have the text on our website read aloud (including PDFs)
- Download the text as an MP3 file to play it where and when it suits you
- Change font sizes and colours
- Customise background colour
- Translate text into more than 100 different languages
The Recite Me Accessibility Tool Bar can be launched by clicking on the Accessibility icon at the top right of the website, or if accessing via a mobile device it can be found in the mobile menu at the top right of the screen.
How do I access the Recite Me toolbar?
You can open the Recite Me language and accessibility toolbar by clicking on the
This
After you click on the button the Recite Me toolbar opens and displays a range of different options for customising how the website looks and how you can access the content.
Recite Me Toolbar
Text size
The text size for this site can also be changed using your browser.
- Internet Explorer: Select the "View" menu, then "Text size"
- FireFox: Select the "View" menu, then "Zoom" or "Zoom text only"
- Safari: Select the "View" menu, then "Make text bigger" or "Make text smaller"
- Opera: Select the "View" menu, then "Zoom"
- Chrome: Select the "More settings" menu, then under "Appearance" use the arrows next to "Page zoom"
How accessible this website is
We are aware that some of the areas of the website are not fully accessible
- you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
- most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- live video streams will not have captions
- some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard or screen reader due to form labelling (which is in the process of being amended)
Feedback and contact information
If you have any comments regarding website, please complete our Online Feedback Form.
Reporting accessibility problems
If you have any concerns or think we're not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact webadmin1@westlothian.gov.uk (opens new window)
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) (opens new window).
Technical information about this website's accessibility
West Lothian 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 (WCAG) 2.1 (opens new window) AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below
Non-accessible content
As part of ongoing accessibility analysis, we utilise accessibility software to monitor the site and identify any issues and non-complaince, whilst we also carry out regular content reviews on a weekly basis to assess any added or updated content to ensure they are meeting the required standards.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
Images
Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).
We are working through to add text alternatives for all applicable images. When we publish new content we'll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards. This is ongoing
Online Forms
Some of our online forms do not currently meet standard WCAG 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions as they do not include accessible form labels. Forms are currently being audited and amended as appropriate.
Disproportionate burden
We believe that our approach to carrying out accessibility checks is reasonable.
However, we have assessed that it'd be a disproportionate burden to fix all documents published on this website since 23 September 2018.
Despite a very large amount of content currently in document form, to date, no complaints have been received in relation to document accessibility. For this reason, we don't believe the cost of time, effort and resource to fix all the documents is justified.
We are therefore focussing on ensuring that new documents are accessible where they're required for essential services or specifically address the needs of, or are meant for, disabled people. Where possible these will be available in HTML format as well as a downloadable version.
In order to address the issues with documents we are:
- making documents available in HTML format where possible as mentioned above
- setting up online accessibility training to educate staff on how to publish accessibly
- providing accessibility tools through ReciteMe to provide functions to read documents where possible
- have requested to have council report templates updated to be accessible
View the full Disproportianate Burden Statement
Content that's not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
Third Party Documents
There are documents published on our website which have been created by third parties such as other organisations. As we do not own these documents it is impossible for us to ensure these are fully accessible.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 26 June 2019. It was last reviewed on 30 October 2023.
This website last was tested on 8 February 2023 by the Government Digital Service. Testing and fixing of highlighted accessibility issues have been carried out between February and October 2023
A sample set of high traffic and interactive pages were chosen as part of the testing.
As part of ongoing accessibility analysis, we utilise accessibility software to monitor the site and identify any issues, whilst we also carry out regular content reviews on a weekly basis to assess any added or updated content to ensure they are meeting the required standards.
