Accessibility

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

• Most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
• Word documents and PDFs may not have structured heading and content navigation
• Some content submitted by providers (for example, posters and fliers) may not be fully accessible (for example: may include pictures of text)
• Some images submitted by providers may lack alternative text descriptions
• Some aspects of how the pages are set up may be less accessible to some screen readers, for example link text may be repeated or not as descriptive as it could be

If you need information held on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille then you can contact us 

Email family_information@sandwell.gov.uk

Call 0121 569 4914

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 family_information@sandwell.gov.uk

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).

Sandwell Family Information Service is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance statement

This website is not fully compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non accessible content

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

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations:

• Some images don't have a text alternative, so the information in them isn't available to people using a screen reader. This doesn't meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content).

We plan to add text alternatives for all images. When we publish new content we'll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.

• The ‘Share on social media’ links at the side, cannot be triggered using a keyboard. Unfortunately this feature relies on a third party plugin called Share

This, and is therefore beyond our control to remedy.

Users could copy the current page URL and paste it into a Facebook post or Tweet.

WCAG 2 level AA requires that context needed for understanding the purpose of a link should be either displayed as the link text or included via a title attribute. Some link text and title attributes are not currently compliant.

Disproportionate burden

Interactive Tools and transactions

Sandwell Family Information Service Hub is built by a third party supplier and the platform does not support interactive or online forms. Forms can however be downloaded from the Directory in Word format.

We have assessed the cost of fixing this issue and we believe doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations.

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

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don't meet accessibility standards. For example; they may not be structured so that they're accessible to a screen reader. This doesn't meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value). Where possible we will aim to remove or replace PDF's and Word documents that don't meet accessibility standards.

The accessibility regulations don't require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they're not essential to providing our services. Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Sandwell Family Information Service Hub is close to meeting WCAG 2.1, Conformance Level AA. Websites often contain content (widgets or functionality) from third parties like Google translate, or Browse Aloud. Although every effort is made to accommodate such code, it is not possible to change it, and therefore a user of Assistive Technology (such as a blind user using a screen reader) may not benefit from the richest user experience for these sections of a page.

We are continuously working to resolve all identified accessibility issues which are within our control as well as working with all our third-party supplied systems to try to resolve any of their identified accessibility issues.