Important announcement

For opening hours and service changes over the festive period, please visit our Festive Information web page.

This accessibility statement applies to the eastdunbarton.gov.uk website.

This website is run by East Dunbartonshire Council and is designed to follow Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines and standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which you can read more about on the W3 website.

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. This means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in to most parts of the website 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)

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability. Find out more on the AbilityNet website.

See the sections below for more detail on the accessibility of this website.

 

More information

We have worked with The Shaw Trust on this website from the design stage to launch. This has meant accessibility has been built into the site from the beginning. We are currently undergoing accreditation from The Shaw Trust and will continue to be tested and improve where necessary.

We do understand however that some parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

  • Some of our documents published prior to 29 May 2020 are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • Some of our online forms may contain tables which are not fully accessible.

Request information in an accessible format

If you can't access information on this website and need it in an alternative format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio format or braille, please contact the Council on 0300 123 4510 or email customerservices@eastdunbarton.gov.uk and explain what information you need and what format you need it in. We will consider your request and get back to you.

Report accessibility problems with this website

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of our website. If you have trouble using the website or find any problems that are not listed on these pages, please contact our web team by emailing webmaster@eastdunbarton.gov.uk or submit a general enquiry form

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the 'accessibility regulations').  If you are not happy with how we respond to any complaint or request you make, you should contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASSS).

East Dunbartonshire 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 partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard. It is only currently partially compliant, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-compliance with accessibility regulations:

  • Some of our videos require the user to select subtitles in order for the captions to appear for screen reader software. We plan to add transcripts where relevant.

Web Forms

  • Some of our online forms may contain tables which are not fully accessible.

Documents

PDFs and other documents published before 23rd September 2018 are exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations you can read more on legislation.gov. If they are not essential to providing our services. We will work to make sure that any new key documents meet accessibility standards. 

Third Party Software

Some of our services are built and hosted through third party software and 'skinned' to look like our website to help customers to understand that the third party is still delivering a Council service. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (information and relationships).

A full manual and automated accessibility audit was carried out by the Shaw Trust in October 2024. A retest as standard practice to receive the accreditation begins on 1 November 2024. Find out more on the Shaw Trust website.

Automated testing is carried out on a daily basis using SiteImprove to monitor and fix accessibility issues as they occur on the main website, online forms and website publications.

Third party websites and forms

We have a range of third party websites and forms. They provide some of our online services and most of them are skinned to look like our main website. We are engaging with our suppliers to assess what is required to make them accessible, examples include:

  • Council Tax Online
  • Community Lets Bookings System.

We are committed to improving the accessibility of the Council website. We are working with the Shaw Trust to ensure we are always accreditated. Shaw Trust testing is carried out by users with disabilities and includes three levels of website accessibility testing:

  • Automated testing
  • Technical manual review
  • User testing.

As we continue to update our website we will carefully monitor new content to make sure it meets accessibility standards.

This statement was prepared on 31 October 2024.