Accessibility

This accessibility statement applies to the South Cambridgeshire District Council website.

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 the text spilling off the screen
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 use Silktide third party software to monitor and fix our website accessibility.

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

most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
live video streams do not have captions
icons on the homepage and landing pages don’t change colour on hover.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like an accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille please email communications@scambs.gov.uk. We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 7 days.

If English is not your first language, or if you have a visual or hearing impairment, we can arrange for translation services for you. This includes telephone and video translation, interpretation and document translation.

The translation services are provided free of charge.

Please email equality.schemes@scambs.gov.uk to request translation services.

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, contact communications@scambs.gov.uk.

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).

Visiting us in person

Our offices have audio induction loops in our Council Chamber and Mezzanine.

Find out how to contact us.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

South Cambridgeshire 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 and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Navigable

Some of our links use the same text for different destinations (WCAG A 2.4.4). We are working hard to update the link text.

Disproportionate burden

South Cambs magazine

The images in our online copy of the South Cambs magazine do not contain alt text, as the magazine is created for print. We believe it is a disproportionate burden to create a separate, fully accessible copy for the website, as each household in the South Cambs district receives a paper copy.

Elections documents

Many of the elections documents are created by the government/ The Electoral Commission and the format legally cannot be amended.

Planning public access documents

Planning public access documents, decision notices and reports before 2 February 2020 are not accessible. We believe it is a disproportionate burden to update the older documents as we have migrated ICT systems and don't have access to amend the old templates. Any new reports and documents generated from 3 February 2020 are fully accessible.

Any documents that have been signed in person or produced by third parties are not accessible on our Planning public access site this is because the software within the system coverts these files into scans, causing them to be images instead. We consider this to be a disproportionate burden because it is something, we do not have control over however, the supplier is looking at changing this in the future so we comply with WCAG2.1.

Statement of account

Our financial statement of account is produced in Excel so pre-set heading styles can’t be tagged. We believe it’s a disproportionate burden to produce the statement of account in Word, as data values would be lost.

Modern.gov documents

Some of our minutes and decisions may not meet accessibility standards because they have been created at previous council / committee meetings and have been signed off. We are not able to go back through and change these after Councillor sign off so we believe it is a disproportionate burden to update the document formatting now.

Tenants magazine

The images in our online copy of the Tenants magazine do not contain alt text, as the magazine is created for print. We believe it is a disproportionate burden to create a separate, fully accessible copy for the website, as each council tenant receives a paper copy.

Section 106 agreements

As of October 2021 we are now producing accessible section 106 agreements. However section 106 agreements produced between September 2020 and October 2021 are not accessible. We believe it is a disproportionate burden to make these documents accessible due to the cost and officer time involved.

If you would like an accessible version of one of the agreements created between September 2020 and October 2021, please contact us at s106@greatercambridgeplanning.org.

Northstowe Groundwater Investigations

Documents relating to the Northstowe groundwater investigations are not accessible as they have been produced by a third-party source. The company HR Wallingford are responsible for carrying out the investigations of the Kingfisher Pond as part of the Northstowe Hydrogeological Assessment.

Community Safety Partnership Strategic Assessment

Whilst working in partnership with South Cambridgeshire District Council, the 2021/2022 Community Safety Partnership Strategic Assessment document was produced by Cambridgeshire County Council to identify strategic topics and themes for the current action plan. This is recognised as a third party document.

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

PDFs 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 the accessibility regulations.

Maps

Our maps aren’t used for navigational purposes so are exempt from the accessibility regulations.

Documents written by third parties

Some of our documents are written by third parties. Third-party content that is neither funded nor developed by, nor under the control of South Cambridgeshire District Council is also exempt from the accessibility regulations. This includes the Neighbourhood Plan documents.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 22 May 2019. It was last reviewed on 17 May 2023.

Fire safety advice