This accessibility statement applies to www.bathnes.gov.uk, the public website for Bath & North East Somerset council. It was last reviewed and updated on 16 January 2025.
What digital accessibility means
This website is run by Bath & North East Somerset council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use our website, including those who may need to use additional tools to read and use the website content. For example, this 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 or speech recognition software
- listen to most of the website content using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
- get a simple description of any visual content, including a summary of any data presented
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
We’ve also made the text of website pages as simple as possible to understand.
How accessible this website is
We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible:
| Issue | Ongoing work or possible solution |
|---|---|
| Some older PDF documents aren’t fully accessible to screen reader software. |
Where we can, we are converting important documents to accessible web content. Contact us (see below) to request an alternative version. |
| Live video streams don’t have captions. | Most of our live events, such as webinars and council meetings, are recorded and the videos posted to our YouTube channel. Here, you can turn on auto-captioning. |
| Older online forms may have poor colour contrast or issues with form labels. | We have replaced most online forms with newer, accessible versions while updating our website. |
Request accessible versions
Contact us if you need any of the information or documents on this website in a different format, such as:
- an accessible PDF
- large print
- Easy Read
- audio recording
- braille
Email us at equality@bathnes.gov.uk
Call us on 01225 47 70 94
We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 10 working days.
Contact us about accessibility
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of our website.
If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, contact us in one of the following ways:
- Email cis@bathnes.gov.uk
- Fill in our website feedback form
- Visit us in person: Our offices have audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit we can arrange:
- a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter
- text relays
- a translator or interprete,r if English is not your first language
Find out about all of the ways you can contact us
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)
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
Bath & North East Somerset 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 the accessibility regulations
- A number of PDF documents on our View conservation area character appraisals page are not fully accessible. These will be made accessible when we review the conservation area designation.
- A number of PDF documents within the Our budgets and spending section are not fully accessible. These are currently under review. The documents that we produce and are responsible for will be made accessible when they are reviewed. However, in some instances, if a document has been produced by a third party, we are unable to make them accessible.
- Some documents on democracy.bathnes.gov.uk are not fully accessible.
- The Auditor's Annual Report PDF document within the Our budgets and spending section is not fully accessible. This document is produced by a third party and is currently under review. We aim for this format to be amended when the next annual report is due.
- A number of PDF documents within the Sustainable Construction Checklist Supplementary Planning Document are not fully accessible. These documents were produced by a third party, and we are unable to make them accessible.
- A number of documents containing technical drawings that support the Somer Valley Links project were unavailable as accessible PDFs at the beginning of our consultation. They will be replaced as soon as our consultants have provided accessible versions.
Documents published through Modern Gov after 23 September 2018
Issues include:
- Missing headings or headings that don’t follow a logical order - This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships)
- Missing titles - This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.2 (Page Titled)
- Default language not specified - This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 3.1.1 (Language of Page)
- Some links to other websites may not be fully accessible - This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.4 (Link Purpose In Context)
- Some images may not have alternative text - This fails WCAG success criterion 1.1.1 (Non Text Context)
- Some tables, including nested tables, may not be easily readable - This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.3.2 (Meaningful Sequence)
We have assessed the impact of making all of our historic documents produced by Modern Gov accessible, and we feel that this would be a 'disproportionate burden' under the regulations. We have taken steps to ensure documents produced in future are accessible and believe that this meets the requirements of the legislation.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
PDFs and other documents
Many of our older PDFs and other document attachments 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).
The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we don’t plan to fix some of our older planning documents.
Any new PDFs or document attachments we publish will meet accessibility standards.
Live video
Live video streams don’t have captions. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.2.4 (captions - live).
We don’t plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations
Accessibility and the law
It is a legal requirement for gov.uk public sector websites to meet accessibility standards. Read more about why accessibility is important, what the legislation says, and how the government monitors and enforces standards.
This website was last externally tested on 16 November 2021 by the Central Digital and Data Office (part of the Cabinet Office) and their report identified a number of accessibility issues with https://www.bathnes.gov.uk, our prototype website at the time.
Since then, we have updated our whole website, and have addressed all of the issues that were discovered. We are conducting ongoing monitoring and accessibility testing of our updated website, to ensure as much of the material is fully compliant with the regulations.
What we're doing to improve accessibility
How we create new content
We use digital components created, accessibility tested and published by the Government Digital Service, to ensure that our web pages work
How we test for accessibility
We routinely test pages as we publish them, using Axe Dev Tools, and also carry out random sample testing each month. The results are available in our testing record and will be updated each month.
Improving our awareness and digital competence
We delivere regular training sessions for staff on how to create accessible documents. We have made a video recording of this training, and have made this available to all staff.
Additionally, we are supplying staff who commission reports and other technical documents from third party providers, as part of their council role, with a brief instructing these provider organisations on how they can ensure they create documents which are compliant with accessibility regulations.