Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Norwich City 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 version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with accessibility regulations

Image alternative text

on the website's home page there are two promotional images where the alternative text is the same as the adjacent text. This fails success criterion 1.1.1 (Non-text content)

We have committed to redesigning our entire digital service including our website and online forms by April 2026. This will include producing a delivery plan to resolve non-compliant issues ahead of the deadline.

Embedded Google Maps (directory pages)

form controls on directory pages where there is an embedded Google Map do not have labels on the map marker icon. This fails success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and relationships)
some tables which contain information do not have clear headers defined. This fails success criterion 1.3.1(Information and relationships)

Our current supplier (Jadu) has advised that Google Maps will need to address this. Whenever we add a marker to an address on a map, we also show the address as text.

Table headers

some tables with many columns do not display properly on mobile devices and require left or right scrolling or using the device on its side. This fails success criterion 1.4.10 (Reflow)
some tables which contain information do not have clear headers. This fails success criterion 2.4.6 (Headers and tables)
some table headings do not have scope. This fails success criterion 1.3.1 (Information and Relationships)

We are looking at fixes for these issues by the end of July 2024.

Forms

some form fields do not identify what their purpose is programmatically, which allows browsers to help users fill in forms with known information. This fails success criterion 1.3.5 (Identify input purpose)
in some forms, labels in the document fragment do not point to valid IDs. This fails success criterion 1.3.1 (Information and Relationships)
on calendars within booking forms the text and background colour that do not have sufficient colour contrast. This fails success criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)
search functions at the bottom of each A-Z entry page do not contain a submit button. This fails success criterion 3.2.2 (On input)
some items are not wrapped with the same name inside a field set. This fails success criterion 1.3.1 (Information and relationships)
some form controls do not contrast sufficiently with their surroundings. This fails success criterion 1.4.11 (Non-text contrast)
there is no scope on table headers in the booking calendars on some forms to tell the assistive technologies what the header refers to. This fails success criterion 1.3.1 (Information and relationships)

All of our online forms are being reviewed and rebuilt in a new form builder as part of our website redesign project. This project will be completed by April 2026 with priority given to high usage forms ahead of this deadline.

Scrolling horizontally on small screens

when viewed on small devices like mobile phones, some pages require scrolling horizontally such as the business merits listings and some pages in the Mousehold Health Earth Trail. This fails success criterion 1.4.10 (Reflow)

We have committed to redesigning our entire digital service by April 2026. This will include producing a delivery plan to resolve non-compliant issues ahead of the deadline.

Lists

lists of related items on Go4Less and Report a repair pages should be tagged correctly to allow assistive technology to navigate from item to item more easily. This fails success criterion 1.3.1 (Information and relationships)

We have committed to redesigning our entire digital service by April 2026. This will include producing a delivery plan to resolve non-compliant issues ahead of the deadline.

Interactive components

many interactive components, such as buttons or links in menus, are too close to each other. This may cause people with motor impairments to click or tap on the wrong element. This fails Success Criterion 2.5.8: Target Size (Minimum)

We have committed to redesigning our entire digital service by April 2026. This will include producing a delivery plan to resolve non-compliant issues ahead of the deadline.

Disproportionate burden

We have committed to redesigning our entire digital service by April 2026. This will include producing a delivery plan to resolve non-compliant issues ahead of the deadline.

We have previously published that it would be a disproportionate burden to fix all inaccessible documents published since September 2018. This included many PDFs and other documents that are not compliant for the following reasons:

PDFs are not machine readable (WCAG A 1.3.1)
tagging hasn't been carried out correctly (WCAG A 1.3.1)
headings have not been specified (WCAG A 1.3.1)
the first heading is not H1 (WCAG A 1.3.1)
headings don't follow a logical order (WCAG A 1.3.1)
default language is not specified (WCAG A 3.1.1)
titles are not defined (WCAG A 2.4.2)
titles are weak (WCAG A 2.4.2)
long pdfs may not have bookmarks (WCAG AA 2.4.5)
documents have been photocopied and converted to pdfs
forms are in PDF or Word format
documents have been provided by third parties

However, these will now be reviewed as part of our website redesign and we will then reassess the situation in July 2025.

In the meantime, we will aim for any new PDFs or other documents we publish to meet accessibility standards. Where possible we provide an accessible HTML version of the information. Where it is necessary to publish a document for customers to print that cannot be made fully accessible, it will be published alongside accessible HTML web pages.

Pdfs and documents can be made available in an alternative format on request

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

You can find the complete list of content exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations on legislation.gov.uk.

PDFs and other documents

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 unless they are essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix the Air Quality Progress Report published in 2015. However, we will aim to provide alternative versions on request.

We are also not required by the regulations to fix documents provided by third-parties that are neither funded nor developed by, nor under the control of the council eg Government leaflets and documents supporting planning applications.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Embedded maps

Our website makes use of embedded maps. We are not required to make these accessible as long as essential information is always provided in an accessible format like an address.

Power BI

Our interactive housing performance reports (Housing Highlights on Get Talking Norwich) are displayed using Microsoft Power BI. Due to limitations in the software, these reports cannot be made fully accessible and may not work well on mobile devices.

We’re reviewing how we present this information to make it easier for everyone to access and understand.

If you have difficulty accessing the reports, please contact us to request the information in another format.

Archived content

Some of our content, such as news articles and minutes of meetings is archived and not within scope of the accessibility regulations.

Third party applications

Some of our online services are provided by third-party applications which are platforms and websites developed by external suppliers and ‘skinned to look like our website. The development of these websites is partly, or wholly out of our control, so they may not conform to the same levels of accessibility of the main website.

We are requesting compliance statements from our suppliers and where these are found to be unsuitable, we will engage with each supplier to agree measures to achieve compliance:

CMIS (councillor information, meetings, agendas and minutes)
Idox (planning applications search)
Civica payments accessibility statement
Land charges search
NEC (council tax and business rates online)
Recruitment website accessibility statement
Resident Portal Website (Your bins)
My Norwich
Victoria Forms accessibility statement

New website

Technical information about this website’s accessibility
Accessibility statement

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