Blackburn College Accessibility Statement

Updated 30^th June 2023

Contents

1. Accessibility statement for the Blackburn College website
2. Feedback and contact information
3. Technical information about this website’s accessibility
4. Non-accessible content
5. What we’re doing to improve accessibility
6. Preparation of this accessibility statement

© Crown copyright 2023

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk.

Where we have identified any third-party copyright information, you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at blackburn.ac.uk/accessibility-statement

Accessibility statement for the Blackburn College website

This accessibility statement applies to the domain blackburn.ac.uk.

This website is run by Blackburn College. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to do the following:

• change colours, contrast levels and fonts [using browser controls]
• 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)
• access the website on smaller devices

We’ve also made the website’s text as simple to understand as we can.

AbilityNet has up-to-date, step-by-step advice on how to make your computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone easier to use.

How accessible this website is

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

• Some form fields, options and controls have no labels associated with them, and some forms do not group related form elements. Some forms do not indicate when fields are required or optional.
• Some parts of the website (particularly the main navigation menu) cannot be accessed via the keyboard, and the site provides no way to skip repetitive content by using the keyboard.
• Some elements of the website have inadequate colour contrast with their backgrounds, and some parts of the site use colour as the only means of conveying information.
• The use of headings throughout the site is inconsistent: some headings are incorrectly nested, others are empty, and some don’t introduce content. Also, some paragraphs are made to look like headings but aren’t coded so that assistive technologies can recognise them as headings.
• Focus order does not always work as expected, and some elements fail to indicate when they have input focus.
• Error messages are not always meaningful.
• Some lists do not behave as expected.
• Some prerecorded multimedia elements have no captions.
• Some links use text that is not meaningful or does not match the destination.
• Some functions do no work when JavaScript is disabled.

More information on the accessibility issues appears in the section on non-accessible content, below.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format, such as easy read, audio recording Braille, or British Sign Language (BSL), feel free to contact us:

• email marketing@blackburn.ac.uk
• call 01254 292929
• write or visit Blackburn College, Feilden Street, Blackburn, Lancashire, BB2 1LH

When you request this information, please tell us the following:

• the web address (URL) of the content
• your name and email address
• the format you need — easy read, audio recording, Braille, or BSL

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 5 working days.

You can find more details on our contact us page.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that we haven’t listed on this page, or if you think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, we’d love to hear from you. Please send us an email in which you describe the problem and tell us which page you were using when it happened. Send this email to marketing@blackburn.ac.uk.

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).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We provide a text relay service for people who are D/deaf or hearing impaired, or who have a speech impediment, and our offices have audio induction loops. If you contact us before your visit, we can arrange a BSL interpreter.

Contact us by one of the following means:

• email marketing@blackburn.ac.uk
• call 01254 292929

We can also provide other reasonable accommodation for your visit. For example, you will be able to request a space with low lighting or low noise levels. Just let us know in advance.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Blackburn College is committed to making its websites 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 2.1 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

This section lists the key ways in which this website fails to meet the WCAG 2.1 success criteria. It includes all violations of A and AA success criteria and all issues that the testing found to be serious or critical. It included minor issues only if they relate to a Level A criterion. The issues appear in numerical order of the applicable success criteria.

 

Some functions depend on JavaScript to work. This fails the following WCAG 2.1 success criteria: 1.1.1 (Non-text content, Level A); 2.2.2 (Pause, Stop, Hide, Level A); 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value, Level A). We will ensure that, by 31^st December 2023, all content and functions are available even when JavaScript is off.

Some lists do not form part of an ordered list or unordered list. This fails the following WCAG 2.1 success criterion: 1.3.1, Info and Relationships (Level A). We will ensure that all lists are coded properly by 31^st December 2023.

Some tables are not coded correctly, and their contents may be hard to understand. This fails the following WCAG 2.1 success criterion: 1.3.1, Info and Relationships (Level A). We will ensure that all tables are coded properly by 31^st December 2023.

Some elements of the website have inadequate colour contrast. This fails the following WCAG 2.1 success criterion: 1.4.3 (Contrast (Minimum), Level AA). We plan to ensure that, by 31^st December 2023, all textual and non-textual elements of the site have adequate colour contrast with their backgrounds.

The use of headings throughout the site is inconsistent: some headings are incorrectly nested, other headings are empty, some “headings” don’t function as headings of content or aren’t coded as headings, and some pages have no Level 1 headings. This fails the following WCAG 2.1 success criteria: 1.3.1 (Info and Relationships, Level A); 2.4.1 (Bypass Blocks, Level A); 2.4.6 (Headings and Labels, Level AA); and 3.3.2 (Label or Instructions (Level A). We plan to correct the heading structure by 31^st December 2023.

Some pages lack meaningful titles describing their topic or purpose. This fails the following WCAG 2.1 success criterion: 2.4.2 (Page Titled, Level A). We plan to give every page a meaningful title by 31^st December 2023.

Some links use text that is not meaningful or does not match the destination. This fails the following WCAG 2.1 success criterion: 2.4.4 (Link Purpose (In Context), Level A). We will ensure that all links use meaningful link text by 31^st December 2023.

Some meaningful images may have missing or inadequate alternative text. This fails the following WCAG 2.1 success criterion: 1.1.1 (Non-text Content, Level A). All non-decorative images should have alternative text at present and this is regularly reviewed to check for inconsistencies.

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

Some of our PDF and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on that give in-depth course information for some degree programmes and Word documents for our job descriptions. We plan to fix these documents or replace them with accessible HTML pages by 29^th February 2024.

Any new PDF or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards. Before publishing new content as a PDF or Word document, we will make sure that that alternative format is necessary, as advised by GDS.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We subject our website to an accessibility audit at semi-regular intervals as well as after we have made a major change to it. We address the issues as soon as we can after we receive the audit’s findings.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 30^th June 2023. It was last reviewed on 31st August 2023.

This website was last tested via audit on 9 June 2023. The audit was carried out by Nexer Digital Ltd.

We chose the pages to audit on the basis of the following user journeys:

1. Find a course
2. An extra random sample of pages, as guided by the Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM) (w3.org/WAI/test-evaluate/conformance/wcag-em)

The audit assessed the following pages and functions:

1. Find a course - "social care"
2. Subject area page - health and social care
3. Course listing page - health and social care
4. Couse page - health and social care FDA
5. Course page - film and photography
6. Course page - psychology BSc
7. How to apply
8. ESOL application
9. Online payments

The audit used the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1, levels A and AA, to determine how accessible the selected pages are.