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Accessibility

Accessibility statement for data.gov.uk documentation

This accessibility statement applies to the data.gov.uk technical documentation at https://guidance.data.gov.uk/#data-gov-uk-technical-documentation.

This website is run by the data.gov.uk team at the Government Digital Service (GDS). We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 300% without problems
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible as there are issues caused by our Technical Documentation Template. Additionally:

  • some headings do not fit with the content that follows
  • some links do not clearly explain where they lead, or that they lead to external sites
  • there is some inaccessible language
  • there are some links to documents in PDF format that are not accessible

What to do if you cannot 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, select Report a problem on the data.gov.uk Support page to message the team with details of your request.

We’ll aim to reply within 2 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, select Report a problem on the data.gov.uk Support page to message the team with details of your request.

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, the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

GDS 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 2.1 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

Some parts of this website are not fully accessible because of issues caused by our Technical Documentation Template. Additionally:

There are links to PDF documents, and these PDF documents are not fully accessible, for example https://guidance.data.gov.uk/publish_and_manage_data/harvest_or_add_data/harvest_data/#dcat-data-json-fields. This is not a fail under any WCAG 2.1 success criterion, but should be looked at to improve accessibility

How we tested this website

We last tested this website for accessibility issues in September 2020.

We used manual and automated tests to look for issues such as:

  • lack of keyboard accessibility
  • link text that’s not descriptive
  • non-unique or non-hierarchical headings
  • italics, bold and block capital formatting
  • inaccessible formatting in general
  • inaccessible language
  • inaccessible diagrams or images
  • lack of colour contrast for text, important graphics and controls
  • images not having meaningful alt text
  • problems when using assistive technologies such as screen readers and screen magnifiers

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We plan to fix the accessibility issues in the content by the end of March 2021.

This statement was prepared on 15 September 2020 and updated on 30 June 2021.

This website was last tested in September 2020. The test was carried out by the technical writing team at GDS. We used the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool and a checklist we created with the help of the GDS accessibility team. We tested a sample page from the site.