This accessibility statement applies to www.rother.gov.uk.

This website is run by Rother District Council.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website.

For example, that means you should be able to do the following using the Recite Me free software: –

• read the page out loud or read selected text 
• get written and spoken translations in multiple languages
• convert selected text into an MP3
• block distractions on screen with a tinted mask
• enlarge text and read it aloud
• remove clutter and display only the main text
• customise options to suit your individual needs or preferences

We have 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.

Accessibility of this website

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

• Most older PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
• Some of our audio recordings of meetings do not have transcripts
• Some of our live and recorded video streams do not have captions
• The Rother Local Plan 2006 pages and associated PDFs have a few broken links as they were developed by a third party

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

If you need information on this website in a different format like large print, easy read, audio recording or braille please fill in our contact us form.

You can get alternatives to non-accessible content by:

• Viewing PDFs by getting the latest free Adobe Reader software
• Listening to our website or translating it using Recite Me on our website

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we are not meeting accessibility requirements, please fill in our report a website fault form.

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 are not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

The best way to contact us is online, using our contact us form.

You can find details of our customer help points on our Access Customer Services page.

Our reception has audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

Technical information about the accessibility of this website

Rother District Council 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

• We are aware of an outstanding issue relating to WCAG 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value, in that the ‘red star’ for mandatory fields, shown on our online forms does not comply to regulations.
• Our Public registers aren’t currently accessible but we will be moving to a new system in the New Year that will eliminate this issue.
• Some of our planning application documents are PDFs and may not meet accessibility standards.
• The Planning Public Inquiry PDF documents for Land at Fryatts Way, Bexhill, may not all meet accessibility standards.
• The PDFs showing on the Health and Well-being Leisure Facilities Strategy consultation page may not all meet accessibility standards.
• 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. Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Content that is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

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

Some of our resource documents, such as posters, are designed to be downloaded and printed, so these may not be fully accessible.

The Rother Local Plan 2006 pages and other planning policy associated PDFs have a few broken links, as they were developed by a third party.

Some documents that are essential to providing our services, such as forms published as Word documents, may not yet be accessible. We are working towards creating HTML pages and accessible documents.

Disproportionate burden

We believe that fixing accessibility problems with some content would be disproportionate; this mostly relates to large complex documents and third-party systems.

This could be because they are too technically complex to change, have low usage but high costs to change, we may not own the source/copyright or we are unable to influence third party supplier development plans.

In the future when replacing systems or commissioning new documents we will look for ones that do meet accessibility standards.

How we tested this website

Our website is checked by Silktide for Level A, AA and AAA standards of the WCAG 2.1. We continue to monitor issues that arise using their live report for our website. We aim to fix them as soon as we are able to.

Silktide test local authority sites for accessibility according to The EU Directive on accessibility of public websites and mobile applications. Our results are published on the Socitm Better Connected website.

What we are doing to improve accessibility

We have produced an accessibility roadmap below which shows how and when we plan to improve accessibility on our website.

Now

• Accessibility Audit of all documents on this website – This is currently in progress using Silktide to identify those documents published since 23 September so we can determine what can be fixed given our staff resources. We also check every new PDF that is added to our website to ensure it is accessible and only published PDFs as a last resort.

Next

•  Accessibility Audit of all website pages – We use Silktide on a weekly basis to check the accessibility of our web pages and flag up any potential issues

Future

•  Consider and action any issues arising from the above accessibility audits

We will also continue to fix issues as they arise from the live Silktide report for our website.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 15 September 2020.

It was last reviewed on 21 October 2021.