Known issues

As part of our commitment to accessibility we are required to publish where we know there are issues with our website.

We list below areas within the website that we know are not fully accessible. We also explain what we’re doing to fix the issues and give information on alternative ways you can get the content.

Horizontal scrolling

As content changes, we end up with content that scrolls in two dimensions. This can make it difficult to navigate on smaller devices or when zoomed in.

We actively keep on top of this, but we are unable to fix some tables on smaller devices. The majority of our tables have been reformatted to avoid horizontal scrolling.

Readability

We are aware that some pages on our website have a high reading age. Whilst preparing this new website, we reviewed a large proportion of content to improve the readability.

We are still working on re-writing content with the highest reading ages to ensure that it is easy to understand.

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be marked up so they’re accessible to a screen reader. They may also include tables that are not correctly marked up to show the clear relationship between the headers and the data.

Some of our PDFs and Word 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 and PDFs. As we prepared this new website, we have been reviewing these to change historic PDF's. We will continue to change the last remaining files as a priority for 2022. 

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 currently plan to fix historic meeting minutes as we need to prioritise other areas.

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

Content specific issues

Our budget book contains a number of accessibility issues that we are actively exploring fixes for.

We will ensure that future versions of the budget book are accessible.

Images, video and audio

Not all of our video content has captions, particularly any live videos.

All newly uploaded videos will have the option for closed captions. We don’t plan on adding captions to live videos because they are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

Assistive technology

Some of our interactive forms are difficult to navigate using a keyboard and screen readers can get stuck in certain sections.

Our forms are built and hosted through third party software from Granicus and are ‘skinned’ to look like our website. As a result, there is only a certain amount of the functionality that we have control over, the rest will be down to our software supplier to improve and fix.

We plan to test and fix any issues with our most used online forms by the end of 2022.

Exemptions

There are some types of content that are exempt from accessibility regulations. All exemptions that relate to our website are listed here:

  • Online maps and mapping services. However, if they are essential for providing a service, an accessible alternative will be provided. E.g. our find us page includes a map so that you can find our offices, but we have also provided a textual address above so that the map is just an aid rather than a necessity.
  • Third-party content that is neither funded nor developed by, nor under the control of Gravesham Borough Council. E.g. content and services supplied by GOV.UK or Kent County Council.
  • PDFs and documents published before 23 September 2018 which are not essential for providing a particular service or active administrative process. However, we are actively working towards reducing the number of inaccessible PDFs and replacing them with accessible alternatives.
  • Pre-recorded time-based media (videos and audio recordings) is exempt from the regulations if it is published before 23rd September 2020.
  • Live-time based media (e.g. live video footage on social media) is exempt from the regulations.

How we tested this website

Details of how we test and audit this website can be found in our accessibility statement.

What we’re doing to fix accessibility issues

We have a plan in place and are working to fix these issues. We have limited resources but are putting a large proportion of our time into making our website compliant and as accessible as possible.

We are working with our Third party suppliers to fix all the relevant issues listed here that are present in their solutions that are built into our website. For example, our payment portal and jobs listing pages. A full list of suppliers and our most recent interactions with them can be found in our accessibility statement.

We are also working with all our staff who are responsible for writing content for the website, to train them in producing more accessible content and to improve all the content already up on the site that has issues.

If you would like more detailed information on our assessments, or a more detailed look at the steps we are taking to fix a particular issue please email accessibility@gravesham.gov.uk.

Something missing?

If you believe that something is missing from this list, please send an email with details to accessibility@gravesham.gov.uk. Be as specific and detailed as you can. Please also tell us if you had a good experience on our website.

This statement was last updated on 27/09/2022.