Accessibility statement for darlington.gov.uk

Using this website

This accessibility statement applies to https://www.darlington.gov.uk. This website is run by Darlington Borough 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 200% 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) 

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

This website is compliant with the W3C WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility standard. However some of the linked to PDF documents are not.

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:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 10 working days.

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) [external link].

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Darlington Borough 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 [external link] AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

N/A

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

N/A

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

Older PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word 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 2.2 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value). 

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. 

The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 [external link] if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we don’t plan to fix old issues of the One Darlington magazine. 

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

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 02/08/2019.  It was last reviewed on 29/07/2024 and is updated monthly.

This website is tested every 10 days against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.

The tests are carried out by the Darlington Borough Council web team using Siteimprove’s[external link] accessibility reports.  Tests are scheduled automatically and are monitored by the web team.