This accessibility statement applies to https://www.essexopportunities.co.uk/

This website is run by Essex County Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website and we have taken steps to ensure that information and services can be used across different devices, settings and preferences.

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

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Essex County 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 fully compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.

Compliance status

This website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA and is fully compliant.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 19th February 2021. It was last reviewed on 1st March 2024.

This website was last tested on 20th February 2024 against the WCAG 2.1 AA standard. The test was carried out by PDMS Ltd.

PDMS used the approach of focusing on the key content areas of the website tested using the following tools and techniques:

  • SiteImprove
  • Microsoft Accessibility Insights
  • Arc Toolkit
  • WAVE
  • AXE
  • Manual testing
  • Testing with Assistive technologies

 

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

 

Content that's not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

PDF's and other documents

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. 

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

 

Live Video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

 

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact Essex County Council.

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you.

 

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, please email us [email protected] and copy in our technology partners PDMS Ltd [email protected].

 

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).

 

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We aim to continue complying with level AA of WCAG 2.1, both the site owners (Essex County Council) and the technical partner (PDMS Ltd) make best efforts to do so and have taken the following steps:

 

  • Staff with content editing responsibility are trained on accessibility criteria and best practice
  • Preference is given to HTML web pages over PDFs or other document types
  • Older, potentially inaccessible PDFs are being gradually replaced with either web pages or newer, accessible PDFs and there are no inaccessible PDFs or Word documents which are essential to providing information or services
  • New PDFs or Word documents published will meet accessibility standards.
  • New page templates are built accessible first and tested before deployment
  • Website is retested on contract renewal to check compliance
  • Text alternatives for non-text content are provided. This includes use of alt and aria tags, ensuring form controls are labelled and provision of data in tables to supplement data visualisation (graphs)
  • The content of pages is marked up appropriately including headings, article tags and main tags.
  • Default foreground and background colours provide sufficient contrast.
  • Tab order is appropriate and visible focus is shown to aid keyboard navigation
  • We have provided 'skip to content' markers to enable users to bypass repeated header content on pages.
  • The site is responsive and this includes zooming.
  • Text content is as simple as possible to understand, although some pages may include industry-specific words, acronyms or phrases which some users may not be familiar with. Explanations of terms and concepts have been provided where practical.