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Accessibility statement

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Accessibility statement for Peterborough.gov.uk

This accessibility statement applies to the Peterborough City Council website, www.peterborough.gov.uk. This website is delivered and maintained by Peterborough City Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website and allow you to optimise your user experience within your browser or browser tools. 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).

We aim to make the website information/content as simple as possible to understand. Our writing style is covered in our website playbook.

For information on how to optimise your browsing experience, by changing your operating system preferences and/or browser accessibility tools please visit:

How accessible this website is

We aim to comply with WCAG 2.2 standards at AA standard. We will also address AAA issues where possible. We are due to change quality assurance provider in July 2025 and as part of this work will identify and address any priority issues that effect our accessibility or content quality scores.

Feedback and contact information

Please contact us if you need information in a different format.

Please include the following details if applicable

  • the web address (URL) of the page content
  • your name and email address or contact details
  • the format you need, for example, audio, braille, BSL, large print, accessible PDF easy read.

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or you think we’re not meeting the accessibility requirements, please contact the web team.

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).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Peterborough City 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

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard. This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 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

Some pages need general improvements / maintenance following publishing due to a fixed deadline or disproportionate burden. We aim to fix issues content issues within four weeks. We publish the date when the page was last published.

The 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

The following A or AA level issues exceed the four week allowance:

  1. Container element is empty - (WCAG 2.2 A) Following some development work on our site footer we have an empty unused container missed in testing - Looking to remove by July 2025 - affects all pages.
  2. Page missing a title - (WCAG 2.2 A) https://www.peterborough.gov.uk/council/benefits/benefits-calculators
    Following a page removal bug - this page does not have a title as it should not exist. Looking to resolve by July 2025.
  3. Colour contrast does not meet minimum requirement (WCAG 2.2 AA) This affects most landing pages and is in relation to our 'task cards' in page navigation following development work. Looking to resolve by July 2025.

Third party systems

The council uses the systems listed below that are supplied by other organisations to provide access to services online through the council website. Some of these third party systems are not fully accessible. If you have a problem accessing any third party systems please contact us.

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

  • Third party content that the council has not paid for or developed - for example, social media 'like' buttons
  • Live audio and video
  • Maps
  • Archives and historical information created before 2018

What we're doing to improve accessibility

Accessibility improvements are carried out on a daily basis. We plan to identify and fix issues within four weeks. The majority of issues that can crop up are fixed as they are discovered. Any issues requiring investigation, or scheduling with our website developers will be recorded in the 'Non-accessible content' section above and the timescales for resolving them indicated. 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 10 September 2022.
Last reviewed 10 April 2025.
This website was last tested on 10 April 2025 against the WCAG 2.2 AA standard

This website is monitored on a regular basis. Tests are carried out by our in-house web team. For the ongoing monitoring of accessibility issues with our web content we use SiteImprove. For detailed investigations and coding issues we use google dev tools and lighthouse, in consultation with our website developers.

This policy explains how accessible the documents on www.peterborough.gov.uk are. It covers PDFs, spreadsheets, presentations and other types of document.

Using our documents

Peterborough City Council publishes documents in a range of formats, including PDFs and spreadsheets. We want as many people as possible to be able to use those documents. For example, when we produce a document we make sure to:

  • provide an HTML or open data alternative for core service information and service delivery
  • tag headings and other parts of the document properly, so screen readers can understand the page structure
  • make sure we include alt text alongside non-decorative images, so people who cannot see them understand what they’re there for
  • avoid using tables, except when we’re presenting data
  • write in plain English

How accessible our documents are

Documents that we publish and documents you need to download or fill in to access our services should be fully accessible. All our documents pass automated accessibility checks to WCAG 2.2. We aim to fix any issues within four weeks of upload. Typically, we will never have more than 3% of our PDF documents failing accessibility checks at any time.

Although most of our documents pass automated accessibility checks - we know that in reality these may not be 'humanly accessible' - for example it might be a plan map of a new parking zone - or a technical diagram with alt text, but the complexity of the diagram may not be fully explained. We also know large PDFs, do not work well on small screens. We aim to include a contact number or alternative information these instances.

During 2025 we will be exploring and gradually seeking to reduce the use of PDFs on our website. Where possible we will seek to create HTML content, prioritising core service information. Strategies, reports and other large documents and document with few downloads will not be prioritised.

What to do if you cannot use one of our documents

If you need to access information in a PDF that has been uploaded, and it does not meet your needs, you can contact us and ask for an alternative format.

Reporting accessibility problems with one of our documents

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of our documents. If you find any problems not listed on this page or you think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements please contact the web team.

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).

Technical information about the accessibility of our documents

Peterborough City Council is committed to making our documents accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

The documents Peterborough City Council publishes are partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Making documents available in other languages

We do not provide documents translated into other languages on our website. If you would like to request a document in another language, please contact us and a translated version of a document may be provided where possible. You can use your own operating system, browser or tools to convert html or documents into other languages.

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

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

A few of our documents have diagrams or maps. These images have a text alternative, but it may be impossible to fully detail what is visually being described, so the information in them is not available to people using a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

Documents on this pavement licence page are submitted by the public and are made available immediately for 7 days as part of a wider consultation. Parts of the documents may contain hand drawn diagrams and hand-written information. Contact details are on the page to access this information in an alternative way.

Documents on this school admissions page, are not our documents, and are supplied by the schools administering this process. They are a mix of document and forms, in word and PDF format and have a range of content tagging issues between then. For an alternative format the schools can be contacted directly. 

Documents in our financial section can contain complex tables and data. You can contact us to ask for this information in an alternative format.

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

  • We have some third-party documents linked to from our website, these are often not part of our service delivery and often promotional materials, signposting and further information materials. We aim to hyperlink to 3rd party materials, and only host them where they are not available elsewhere.

Accessible document policy last reviewed April 2025.

Published: 11 April 2025