Accessibility statement for Bromford.co.uk

This accessibility statement applies to bromford.co.uk

This website is run by Bromford Housing Group. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

Zoom in up to 200% without loss of content or functionality (except for captions and images of text) and without the text spilling off the screen
navigate most of the website using just a keyboard – except for non-essential feedback sections
change the language of the website without assistive technology using the embedded Google Translate tool at the top of the website

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. We are currently working through what we can to improve this internally as well as with our developers to improve the current features that aren’t accessible.

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 – digital@bromford.co.uk

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 28 days.

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 the communications team at Bromford by emailing digital@bromford.co.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

Our offices have audio induction loops.

Find out how to contact us. Please note: Our offices are currently closed due to the ongoing Covid-19 situation.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Bromford 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 not compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard. The non-compliances are listed below.

Non-accessible content

This site has been formally tested against the WCAG 2.1 AA standards. Below are known issues that we either need to fix, cannot fix or do not need to fix right now. If you find something that we missed, please contact us.

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Imagery

Some images do not have a text alternative (alt text), so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). We plan to add text alternatives for all images by the end of April 2021. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.

There are currently some non-essential images of text on our website, which is a failing of WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.5 (images of text). We plan to review all of these images and change them by the end of April 2021.

ARIA

We are aware that some of the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) coding is not compliant. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1 (Parsing) and 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships). This will require development time to our site, please see ‘disproportionate burden’ below.

Language

The language of the website is not set in the HTML code. This is a failing of WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.1.1 (language of page). We are working with our web developer to add this to the website code by April 2021.

Contrast

Parts of our colour usage on our website fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (contrast) and 1.4.11 (non-text contrast). Links, certain buttons, and other elements are orange and white, which presents a contrast ratio of less than 4.5:1. We plan to alter the colour of our hyperlinks by the end of April 2021.

Navigation – names and labels

Areas of our website are not in a sequential order impacting the way users can navigate around a certain web pages. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.6. We plan to work with our developers and resolve this issue by the end of April 2021. There are also areas of the site that lack clear naming and labels conventions failing WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2

Interactive controls

Our website is mostly navigable using just a keyboard, however, there are a couple of embedded elements that allow us to gather extra feedback from users. These extra elements are not navigable to using a keyboard. This is a failing of WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1 (keyboard accessible). As this is a third-party plugin and not an essential website feature, it is out of scope to fix it. We welcome feedback from every user of our website, so feedback about the website can be sent directly to digital@bromford.co.uk

Hyperlinks

The wording of some hyperlinks on our website are not as clear and direct as they should be. This is a failing of WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link purpose). We plan to review all of the hyperlinks on our website and update them to make their purpose clear by the end of April 2021.

Forms

Certain forms on our website are not clear on labelling and error messaging, this is a potential failing of WCAG 2.1 success criterion(s), 3.3.1 (error identification), 3.3.2 (labels or instructions), 3.3.3. (error suggestion), 3.3.4 (error prevention). We plan to review and update the forms with our developers by the end of April 2021.

Lists

Lists within this website are not tagged correctly which is a potential failing of the WCAG 2.1 success criteria 4.1.1. (parsing) We are working with our website developers to rectify this issue by the end of April 2021.

Disproportionate burden

Website development

As the result of a merger back in December 2019 Bromford are now managing three completely separate websites with different web suppliers. These three websites, www.bromford.co.uk, www.merlinhs.co.uk, https://www.svhs.org.uk/, vary in their compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. We are in the process of creating one central website which will be in full compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard. As this website is currently in production, we believe it is a disproportionate burden to not redevelop www.merlinhs.co.uk, https://www.svhs.org.uk/ as these websites are not actively used - only www.bromford.co.uk is actively updated with content.

Captions

We have a range of videos on our YouTube channel that are shared within the content of our website. These do not have default captions and use YouTubes automated system - under a selection of our videos we have provided a transcript. If needed, we can produce full edited captions upon request to ensure the accuracy of the information being provided. Moving forward all future videos will be fully transcribed translating the information accurately.

Content not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

Third-party content

Within our website their links to third-party content of which we don’t have control over and are not responsible for the accessibility of this content.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Our accessibility roadmap shows how and when we plan to improve accessibility on these websites.

September 2020 - Gap analysis audit started
October 2020 - Gap analysis findings published
April 2021 – Work with internally and with developers too analysis and update of alt-text, non-essential images with text, hyperlink colour, hyperlink purpose, html lang attribute and forms.
October 2021 - Estimated launch of fully WCAG 2.1 AA Bromford website

This roadmap will be updated once the gap analysis is completed.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 22 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 03 February 2021.

This website was last tested on 21 September 2020. The test was carried out internally and issues were identified across the main pages of the website.

We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test; the most popular pages based on analytics data.