Access

Accessibility features

Plain English

We try to write in plain English and avoid jargon where possible. If you don’t understand something, please let us know.

Heading structures

The site uses simple heading structures which should make it easier to navigate, especially for people with screen readers.

Web standards

We try our best to comply with code standards such as those relating to CSS and HTML, and W3C WAI guidelines(External link – Opens in a new tab or window).

Links

When hovering over links they will be underlined for easier accesss

Forms

The embedded forms used on this website are not fully accessible to screen readers. We can send alternatives if required.

Documents

We try to make our documents as accessible as possible, but sometimes this can’t be done. If you need a document in a different format, please contact us and we will do our best to provide it.

Changeable page features
Text size

If you find the site’s default text size is too small or large, you can change it with your browser’s inbuilt text-size function.

To resize the text using your browser:

  • use the ‘View’ menu and then select ‘Text Size’, in Windows Internet Explorer (including Pocket IE)
  • use the ‘View’ menu and then select ‘Text Size’, in Firefox and other Mozilla browsers
  • use the ‘View’ and then ‘Make Text Bigger’ options, in Safari
  • use the ‘View’ and ‘Style’ menus, and then ‘User Mode’, in Opera
  • use the ‘View’ and then ‘Text Zoom’ menu, in Macintosh Internet Explorer, and Netscape 6 and 7

With a wheel-mouse, you may be able to change the text size by holding down the Control or Command key and turning the wheel. In some browsers, you can change the text size using Control or Command and the + or  keys.

Text style and colour

You can also specify the font styles, colours, as well as the foreground and background colours. The way you do this varies from browser to browser, with you needing to:

  • use ‘Tools’ in ‘Internet Options’, with Windows Internet Explorer (including Pocket IE)
  • use ‘Tools’ in ‘Options’ under ‘Content’, in Firefox and other Mozilla browsers
  • use the ‘View’ and then ‘Make Text Bigger’ options, in Safari
  • use the ‘View’ menu and then ‘Zoom’, in Opera
  • use the ‘View’ menu and then ‘Text Zoom’, in Macintosh Internet Explorer, and Netscape 6 and 7
Documents

The following applies to desktop and laptop computers, but not tablets or mobiles.

PDF documents: most computers will show these automatically. If you need the software, you can download the free PDF reader from the Adobe website (External link – Opens in a new tab or window).

Multimedia content

Our website’s videos are embedded via the website YouTube. Due to this, some accessibility features may not be available, which is beyond our control. Visit the YouTube help pages (External link – Opens in a new tab or window) for information on accessing videos with screen readers.

Embedded content

Our website uses content embedded from other websites. This may reduce accessibility when trying to access content directly via keyboards or screen reader technology. If this issue affects you, please contact us so that we can help where possible, and fix any problems.

Please send any ideas or suggestions to help improve the site via the feedback buttons below.