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This site is work in progress, please be patient with us. We are consolidating the site from historical fragments whilst adding new features that better match our senior demographic.

Accessibility Statement

for The Brighton and Hove Older People’s Council (OPC) Website

Our Starting Point

This is the accessibility statement starting point for our website - Help with Accessibility can be found here.
This accessibility statement describes how the OPC is trying to make the site as accessible as possible to those over 50 (yet stay within our budget), and what to do if you have any problems or need information on this site in a different format.
It is based on the model accessibility statement which is the minimum legal wording for what needs to be included.

This statement is linked from a prominent place on the homepage and from every page on the website in the website footer. It is in an accessible format that everyone can use. This site can be read on a mobile phone, a screen reader, and the text can be resized.

This accessibility statement applies to this website only.

This website is run by The Older People’s Council (OPC). 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 using browser or device settings
zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
navigate most of the website using a keyboard or speech recognition software
listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver). This site has been tested using the Chrome Browser Extension found here or add speechify to your browser using the Chrome Browser Extension found here which can speed read the web page for you, this helps if you have Dyslexia or ADHD for example.
What are screen readers and how they enable blind people to surf the internet - can be found here
What is new in the JAWS 2024 Screen Reader Software - can be found here

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 is this website?

If you are using a modern mobile phone you can use pinch touches of the screen to zoom in up to 400% or within the capability limits of your device.

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

you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
live video streams do not have captions
you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
there’s a limit to how far you can magnify the map on our ‘contact us’ page

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: [provide both details of how to report these issues to your organisation, and contact details contact details for the person responsible for dealing with these reports]
Mail the WebMaster.

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

Todo: Update when we have the phone sorted. Do [add link to contact details page] and [provide both details of how to report these issues to your organisation, and contact details for the person responsible for dealing with these reports]=webMaster@

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in [number] days.

If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, call or email us [add link to contact details page] for directions.

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’).
We are not a Public Sector Body

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The Older People’s Council (OPC) is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 where possible.

Compliance status

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard and that it’s partially compliant with requirements of the WCAG 2.2 AA standard (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2). More info about Digital Accessibility in 2024: Report download and key findings> can be found here

Non-accessible content

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

Website Reader and Voice Controlled website (eg Dragon Naturally speaking) - will be completed when funds become available
any WCAG problems will be resolved when funds become available

Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information - This site has few or no images to enhance readability, what images there are have Alt tags. This is a Not-For-Profit organization and so it would be a ‘Disproportionate burden’ to have this site regularly tested against the requirements of the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.

Disproportionate burden

Bear in mind that something which is a disproportionate burden now will not necessarily be a disproportionate burden forever, funding may become available to address any priority WCAG issues. This site is not a Public Sector Body so does not have the WCAG compliance issues that a Public Sector Body site has. It is purely an assistance for the Over 50s that might have accessibility issues see Digital Exclusion in Communication & Social Isolation.

There’s no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option).

It’s not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view some of the content.

It’s not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping.

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with navigation and accessing information. We believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when the supplier contract is up for renewal, likely to be in [rough timing].

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

In this subsection list accessibility problems that fall outside 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. For example, we do not plan to fix historic or third party PDFs that we have no control over.

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

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We will publish an accessibility roadmap when we can be more specific about the order you’re planning to tackle accessibility issues as they arise.

Our accessibility roadmap will show how and when we plan to improve accessibility on this website.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on [October 21, 2024]. It was last reviewed on [ TBC when it was last reviewed].

This website was last tested on [date] against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard as a self-assessment done by the website team

The test was carried out by OPC itself. The most viewed pages were tested using automated testing tools by our website team. A further audit of the website was carried out to the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.

Technical information about this website’s performance

This site uses Server Side content switching to provide a better user experience. Which means you can use the same URL (website address) to access the site on a mobile phone, tablet, or desktop computer. But content that would slow down the site on a mobile phone is not shown on a mobile phone.
For those interested in such things, the website has been performance tested using the Lighthouse test tool to check against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard, other metrics are shown below. The main endeavor is to make the site as accessible as possible to those over 50, on a cheap mobile phone, using the shockingly slow 4G/5G network in Brighton and yet stay within our budget.

Mobile

Desktop

Visual performance

There are two main style, the primary one for the mobile phone and the secondary the desktop (having pictures for example). The 'Black and White' style is used for the mobile phone for performance and accessibility reasons and the 'Colour' style is used for the desktop with faster internet. The mobile phone style is used for all devices with a small screen width of 768 pixels or less.

Digital Accessibility

Here are the highlights from Attitudes to Digital Accessibility in 2024.

A mixed picture at a challenging time
Organisations falling into two camps: Accessibility Leaders that are seeing the benefits of investing in accessibility, and Accessibility Laggards who are being left behind - this gap is widening. ‘Lack of awareness, knowledge and understanding’ was the most common reason given why digital accessibility was a lower priority.
The most common reason given for not investing in digital accessibility was a lack of Budget, awareness, training and understanding. in fact, Lack of budget was the most significant barrier to progress. This was linked to competing priorities, lack of senior buy-in for accessibility, and lack of knowledge about the impact. An increase in resources (money, time, staff) was the most common answer to what would help delivery.
Everyone is short of money.
Senior buy-in is inconsistent
A recent survey results indicate that senior advocates are important for successful digital accessibility. A third of respondents told us that having no or little senior leader involvement was a significant barrier to delivery. It was linked to other barriers such as limited resource and lack of understanding and awareness. It was found to be common across organisations that one person or a small group of non-senior advocates were trying to gain senior buy-in with no success. This is, 53% said that other priorities being seen as more important is a significant barrier to delivering digital accessibility
Priority
More people feel that digital accessibility is a ‘low priority’ in 2024 than in 2023 - a trend in the wrong direction.
Motivations
Meeting legal requirements has increased by over 8% and protecting brand reputation has increased by over 11%. The respondents who mentioned growing or protecting revenues, business benefit, fit with brand values, differentiating us from competition, and reducing business risk all increased - but not by much, yet those that address it do so for competitive reasons
Barriers
Limited or no budget allocated for digital accessibility has increased by over 7%.
Procurement of inaccessible solutions or elements has increased by 5%.
User Testing and Research
25% of respondents said that they do not do any user testing or research - this has stayed the same over the last year.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
There as been a 9% increase it the opinion that AI will have both a positive and a negative impact. This really speaks to AI being an unknown, or that its magic and it will fix everything.