Accessibility

This website, cocking.org, is run by Cocking Parish Council, which is responsible for the accessibility of its pages. The Council is not however responsible for linked pages, over which it has no control or influence over either content or technology. Linked pages include those accessed using hyperlinks found on cocking.org pages or accessed via the website’s menus.

Using this website

We want as many people as possible to be able to use our website. If you need help, you can access the Accessibility Options toolbar by clicking on the ‘white man’ icon in the top right hand corner of all pages (example also shown here).

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability and we have also made the website text as straightforward as possible to understand.

How accessible is this website?

We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible:

some older PDF documents may not be fully accessible to screen reader software
you can’t skip to the main content when using a screen reader
contrast may not be adequate for all users on all pages, but you can use the Accessibility Options tools to change the contrast settings or make the page monochrome (greys).

What to do if you can’t access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, email info@cocking.org or go to the Contact page and send us a message. We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 7 days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this 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, please use our Contact page or email us at info@cocking.org or parishclerk@cocking.org.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you are not happy with how we respond to your complaint you may wish to contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We do not currently have any offices where you can visit us. If you want to see someone in person, please contact us to request a meeting and we will try to arrange a suitable venue and time. Find out how to contact us via our Contact Page.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Cocking Parish Council is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Issues you may find

In each subsection below, we aim to say:

what the accessibility problems are
when we plan to fix them
if we don’t plan to fix a problem, why we will not be doing so, for example, if the type of content is exempt from the regulations, or if we believe that doing so would impose a ‘disproportionate burden’

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing these issues and believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when we next do a major redevelopment of the website.

Issues with text

No ‘skip to main content’ option on any pages although there is a skip to top (an up arrow button) at the bottom right of all pages.
Low contrast on some pages that can be corrected using the Accessibility Toolbar detailed above.

Issues with PDFs and other documents

Some of our older PDFs don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be marked up so they’re accessible to a screen reader.
Some of our PDFs are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on ‘transparency’ that we are obliged to publish. By September 2020, we plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.
Note: 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 although we don’t think we have many of these apart from past Council Papers.
Any new PDFs we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Issues with images, video and audio

We do not normally publish video material, although during the COVID-19 pandemic we included links to live streams of Parish Council Meetings, published on the Council’s Facebook pages. If we do so in the future, we don’t plan to add captions to video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Issues with interactive tools and transactions

We’ve assessed the cost of improving navigating of forms using a keyboard and believe that doing so would currently be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment at a later date.

Issues with the mobile version

Viewing the website on a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet may present similar problems to viewing it on a personal computer. However there may be additional navigation problems which we are attempting to address.

How we tested this website

All pages of this website were last tested on 02 April 2023. The test was carried out by ourselves using the WAVE online tool from AIM (Accessibility in Mind), and by manual checking against standard World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Evaluation Methodology Reporting Tool (WCAG-EM Report Tool).

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We are continually working to improve accessibility on this website and will publicise any changes or plans as they occur.

Last updated: 11 April 2023