Website accessibility

Our website accessibility statement, access to our information and services, where we know our site doesn't meet accessibility regulations and our plan to fix accessibility issues.

This accessibility statement applies to web content and forms on the main Bristol City Council website. It excludes some applications and tools that we use but it includes the common user journeys:

online payments
job search
paying council tax
reporting an issue with bins

This website is run by Bristol City Council. It's designed to be used by as many people as possible. The text should be clear and simple to understand. You should be able to:

change colours, contrast levels and fonts
zoom in up to 300% and read the text
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

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:

some form inputs are more difficult to complete because they don't have auto-complete values for commonly saved information
some form inputs are not keyboard operable
the date and time picker on our missed bin or recycling collection form
the date picker for registering births is difficult to use
on some web forms there is no option to extend the session length and prevent session time out
radio buttons on some of our online forms have a focus indicator style that is difficult to see, making it difficult to work out which form field you're on
a few buttons and icons have mismatched text and accessible names or missing accessible names
some form inputs do not provide clear error suggestions (for example, when a form asks for your date of birth or to register a birth.)

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 us using our Accessibility feedback 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're not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information in a different format, like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording, British Sign Language or Braille, contact us using our Accessibility feedback form and tell us:

the web address (URL) of the content
your name and email address
the format you need

We'll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days. Delivery of the alternative format could take longer based on the type of alternative format that you need.

Find contact details for our different services.

we provide a text relay service for people who are d/Deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment but you can speak to our team using BTs text relay app.
phone lines are open 8.30am to 5pm Monday to Thursday, 8.30am to 4.30pm Friday.
Sign Video British Sign Language (BSL) Interpreting.
BSL Interpreting is available Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm. Face to face BSL interpreting can be arranged in advance of an in person appointment.

Find contact details for our different services.

Visits to our citizen service point

At our citizen service point, we provide:

wheelchair access and specially lowered desks
mini-loop facilities
British Sign Language available through a video link
phone interpreters available for customers whose first language is not English.
face to face appointments available behind a protective screen
free wi-fi
free computer access

More about our Citizen Service Point.

Technical information about this website's accessibility

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard. We're committed to making our websites accessible in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Non-accessible content

Content that is not accessible is outlined below with details of:

where it fails the success criteria
planned dates for when issues will be fixed

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations on bristol.gov.uk

Content that's hard to access or not perceivable

Videos without captions

Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations (PSBAR) require that audio and video recordings made available from September 23 2020 must meet accessibility standards, as defined by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA.

We've added captions to most of our YouTube video library but some older shared videos lack captions.

This fails success criteria 1.2.2, captions.

Documents that are hard to read or navigate

Some documents have missing or incorrectly nested headings, a missing table of contents, complex tables or unclear content making them difficult to read or navigate with some kinds of assistive technology.

This fails success criteria 1.3.1, information and relationships.

We've assessed that making some documents fully accessible could be a disproportionate burden in terms of cost versus value but will work to make essential service documents accessible.

Some web pages contain content that doesn't convey enough information or meaning about structure

Some pages contain pseudo-content that's inserted with CSS. This means that some content is not perceivable when a user disables the stylesheet to read or use the page.

This fails success criteria 1.3.1, information and relationships.

Content that's hard to operate or inoperable

No option to extend web form timeout

Some of our web forms don't offer an option to extend the session before timing out. This fails success criteria 2.2.1 Timing Adjustable.

Content that's not understandable

Language of page

Some of our PDF documents do not have the Language of page set to English in the HTML. This fails 3.1.1 Language of Page.

We've identified PDFs with missing language attributes and created a backlog that we are working through. We aim to complete this by summer 2025.

Content that's hard to read

Some content is technical or difficult to understand as it is not written in plain English.

Most content is designed to meet a lower secondary education reading level.

Some content is designed for business audiences with specific knowledge or expertise. This fails success criteria 3.1.5 (AAA) Reading level.

Accessibility issues for our third-party applications and solutions

Form builder product, Orbeon

We have identified the following fails on success criteria:

1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose. Some common web form inputs are hard to auto-fill correctly because they lack common auto-complete values.
1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum). ‘Tell us' links have insufficient contrast. ‘Tell us' error text has insufficient contrast.
2.1.1 Keyboard. Links on ‘tell us about a problem' pages lose focus
2.2.1 Timing Adjustable. ‘Tell us about a problem' form times out
3.2.1 On Focus. Focus moves away from links on ‘tell us about a problem' page
2.4.7 Focus Visible. In some of our web forms, the focus indicator isn't visible before a radio button in a set has been selected. This makes it difficult to operate the radio buttons with a keyboard as you can't always see where you are in the form. It can also make it difficult to see when links have been selected.

We are investigating how the issues can be addressed in our third-party form building solutions. Contact us to be notified when we publish the fix date for these issues.

Jobs website, iTrent

We have identified the following fails on our jobs website on success criteria:

4.1.1 Parsing. Issue with an input tag used as child of a <table> on job search results
4.1.2 Name. role, value. On our job login: Table cells have incorrect aria-required attribute. Some content needs to be better described for assistive technology users. The jobs search page which has a role of list but no list items

We're in discussion with our third party provider to agree a roadmap.

Online payment, E-Capita payment portal

The e-capita payment portal that we use for multiple payment services fails accessibility success criteria:

1.1.1 Non-text Content
1.3.1 Info and Relationships
1.4.13 Content on Hover or Focus
1.4.10 Reflow

The cost to fix these issues is relatively high as it requires a large system upgrade. We're in discussion with our third party provider to agree a roadmap.

Residents parking and Clean Air Zone, MiPermit

Accessibility statement for MiPermit

Open data website, ESRI ArcGIS Hub

Our Open Data site sits on an ESRI ArcGIS Hub platform.
Accessibility status report for ArcGIS Hub

Manage your Penalty Charge Notice (PCN)

Accessibility statement for Online Case Management.

Webex Contact Center Web Chat widget

See the:

Disproportionate burden

We're currently reviewing and updating our disproportionate burden section using supplier quotes and estimates for work required to improve our compliancy with WCAG 2.2 AA success criteria and the public sector accessibility regulations. Contact us to be notified when this section of the statement is updated.

See how we approach pdf disproportionate burden (183 KB) .

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

PDFs and other documents

Some of Bristol City Council's older PDFs do not meet accessibility standards. We're working towards making more of our PDFs meet the WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility standards. The public sector accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018, unless they're essential to providing our services.

We are prioritising improving the accessibility of our documents that:

contain information about how to access or use our services
are frequently downloaded
contain information that has a statutory requirement

We'll ensure that all essential documents will meet accessibility guidelines by April 2025.

Live video

Our live meetings are saved to the Bristol City Council Live Meetings YouTube channel on which we have 1,300 subscribers and became eligible for automated live captions. This means we can manually edit these auto captions to convey the correct information.

Maps

We do not plan to make our maps accessible as these are exempt from the public sector accessibility regulations.

Where user needs have been identified our design team may use techniques to make maps more accessible to citizens.

We have several maps and archive applications including Fix my street, Pinpoint and argcis. We consider issues identified in some of these solutions that are not map-specific to be within scope of the public sector accessibility regulations and have identified them on our roadmap.

How we test this website

Website testing is carried out by our Web Content and Delivery teams, for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.2 level A and level AA.

We carry out manual testing and use several tools, including:

Our main Bristol City Council website was tested as we moved to a new platform in August 2022.

We plan to get our website tested again by summer 2025.

What we're doing to improve accessibility

We are producing an accessible communications policy that covers telephone, face to face and web content communication channels. We will update this page with more details about the policy by early 2025.

We keep auditing sites and applications internally to find out what we need to do for better compliancy with public sector accessibility regulations.

We're testing each component, style and pattern in our new design system to ensure that it's fully accessible.

We include accessibility checks as part of our platform requirements gathering and procurement processes. We have developed checklists and resources for different teams to help them produce content with accessible foundations.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was last updated on 29 October 2024.

Tell us about a problem with a form, page or online account