Accessibility Statement

Accessibility statement for Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

This accessibility statement applies to webtest.rbkc.gov.uk.

This website is run by Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. 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 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
• some of our online forms, transactional services and applications are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard.

Feedback and contact information

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

• email [email protected]
• call 020 7361 3000
• We’ll consider your request and aim to get back to you within two (2) working days.

If you cannot view the map on our ‘visit us’ page, call or email us for directions.

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 the Web Services Team at [email protected].  

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you’re 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

You can contact us by phone or visiting us in person. 

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea enable British Sign Language users to contact us using a Sign Language interpreter, through the InterpretersLive Service, provided by Sign Solutions.

Technical information about this website's accessibility

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea 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 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

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

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

We are actively working to ensure that all our web content meets the WCAG 2.2 standard. Please note that other software applications, platforms, and websites might not yet provide an equivalent level of accessibility compliance as what you currently experience here.

Below, you can find snippets of content that might not be completely accessible:
 

Forms and transactional services

Most of our online forms and transactional services are software applications, platforms and websites, ‘skinned’ to look like our website. These are designed and developed by our external partners and third-party suppliers.

These applications are partly or wholly out of our control and may not conform to the same levels of accessibility as our main website.

Third-party applications include (but not limited to):

• MyRBKC Account
• Online payments
• Family Information Service and SEND Local Offer
• Planning Applications Search and Building Control

We’re carrying out accessibility assessments of all our third-party transactional services and ask suppliers to fix accessibility issues when they are identified.

We will update this technical accessibility statement while the accessibility assessments are being conducted simultaneously. This will provide more information on any accessibility issues we find and what we're doing to improve the accessibility of this website overall.

We require that any new third-party systems we commission are Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 AA compliant.

Family Information Hub

Disproportionate burden

Not applicable.

How we tested this service

An accessibility retest audit on the Royal Borough of Kensington Chelsea website was carried out by the Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC) user/technical team on the 5 May 2021.  

The Royal Borough of Kensington Chelsea pages was assessed against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG 2.1. 

The original testing consisted of a small number of accessibility issues identified that could pose issues for disabled users some of whom rely on assistive technologies and some who do not rely on assistive technologies.

Having undergone an accessibility retest on the original issues identified no single A or AA fails were identified on the pages tested at the time of the retest.

A small number of usability issues were found by the Disability Accessibility Centre's manual user testing team that although do not fail to meet the WCAG 2.1 success criteria, we fixed the usability issues to improve the overall user experience.

The sample of pages reviewed in the audit was selected using the following criteria:

• pages common to many websites - for example, homepage and service landing pages
• pages with variations in layout and functionality which included:
  • Journey 1 – Homepage
  • Journey 2 – Basic Content page
  • Journey 3 – Service Landing Page
  • Journey 4 – Service Category page
  • Journey 5  - Guide Overview
  • Journey 6  - Guide Page
  • Journey 7 – Step by step overview
  • Journey 8 – Homepage Hero Component
  • Journey 9 – Home page Service Grid
  • Journey 10 – Homepage Latest News Component
  • Journey 11 – Homepage news blocks
  • Journey 12 – Policy paper
  • Journey 13 – Consultation
  • Journey 14 – Event 
  • Journey 15 – Event landing
  • Journey 16 – News Article 

Through further accessibility testing we have identified other sections of this website that are not compliant with the accessibility regulations. These sections are listed in the 'Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations' section above. 

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

In addition to accessibility testing with the Disability Accessibility Centre, we use Siteimprove's automated testing tools to monitor and fix usability and accessibility issues as they occur.

We manually review and update the website to maintain any parts that automated testing cannot cover.

We're working with our supplier Zoocha, and other third-party partners, to fix the known accessibility issues and to make the system more usable for all users.

We continually monitor this website for accessibility issues and will update this accessibility statement as and when accessibility issues are identified and subsequently fixed.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 22 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 09 July 2024.