Accessibility statement

• Standard fonts are used throughout the site for easy legibility.
• Wherever possible, we use live text instead of graphics to reduce the download time of pages and increase your control.
• No information is exclusively conveyed using colour. This does not mean that colours are not used to organise information, instead it means there are also other, non-colour dependent ways of doing so.
• The majority of our pages are designed so that they are without horizontal scrollbars when they are viewed at a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels.
• All images, where appropriate, have an alternative text attribute. This means that when an image is conveying important information its content is described with an alternative text. If an image is used for decorative purposes only, the text attribute for the image will be left blank.
• Where individual features make use of functions that do not comply with the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines we have made sure that there are alternative routes provided to the information.
• A link to details of how to contact us for further information offline is provided from every page.
• Where a process takes multiple steps to complete (for example, forms) an indication of where you are in the process and how far you have to go is provided.
• Style of navigation remains consistent through the websites.

We are committed to a process of on-going improvement and are working to ensure all content is made compliant with the provisions of the DDA and that all new content is developed under the guidelines outlined above.

In addition to technical developments to our Web sites to provide greater accessibility, we test them with multiple assistive technologies - such as screen readers and screen enlarging software - to analyze and modify our pages. We also engage accessibility experts and people with disabilities to further test and modify our Web sites for optimal usability.

Although we continue to test and modify our Web sites for accessibility, there may be pages developed by third-parties that are not fully compliant with our standards. If you would like further information about our accessibility standards or have problems accessing this Web site, please contact our Web site administrator.