Teignbridge District Council is committed to making its websites 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.

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

Issues with text.

We are working to ensure that as much text as possible has a reading age of 11 or below. 

Issues with PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and other documents don’t meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be marked up so they’re accessible to a screen reader.

Some of our 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. By June 2022, we aim to replace them with accessible HTML pages.

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.

We aim to ensure that any new documents we publish meet accessibility standards.

Issues with navigation

Some information is provided as content within a map. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 Non-text Content. We aim to publish all content that is only available in a map as html where possible, by July 2022.

Accessibility of our other websites and online services

We use some third party online services and websites to allow customers to interact and transact with us. These include (but are not limited to) paying for council tax, applying for licenses, reporting issues, online surveys, applying for a parking permit and applying for planning permission.

Not all these sites and online services meet the necessary standards for accessibility, and where they do not we are engaging with our suppliers to rectify this. We aim to rectify as much as possible by September 2020, but some work may be ongoing past this date. More information on third party systems.

When procuring new online systems, meeting accessibility standards is included in the specification, and we continue to work with suppliers to ensure sites continue to meet these standards.

Issues with contrast

Some pages have low contrast errors. This doesn’t meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) We aim to make all content reach the minimum required levels by September 2020.

Disproportionate burden

We are currently assessing areas of disproportionate burden and are publishing these in the section of this statement - Disproportionate burden