South Essex Colleges Group Accessibility Statement

Accessibility statement for South Essex Colleges Group (SECG)

This accessibility statement applies to www.southessex.ac.uk

The goal of this website is to guarantee the accessibility of its content and services for individuals with disabilities who require additional access support. Resources have been dedicated to enhancing the website's user-friendliness and accessibility, driven by the aligned mission with Recite Me that every individual deserves to experience and engage with digital content, equally. 

Measures to support accessibility

This website takes the following measures to ensure accessibility:

• Include accessibility as part of our mission statement.
• Include accessibility throughout our internal policies.
• Integrate accessibility into our procurement practices.

Conformance status

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) define requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. It defines three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA. This website aims to conform with WCAG 2.2 level AA. 

The website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

The full guidelines are available at: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2.

Accessibility Efforts & Disclaimer

We remain dedicated to the ongoing enhancement of the accessibility of its website and services. This commitment is rooted in the belief that ensuring a smooth, inclusive, and unrestricted experience for individuals with disabilities is a shared ethical responsibility.

We are always striving to enhance the accessibility of all pages and materials on our website, it's possible that some content has not yet been fully aligned with accessibility standards. This could be attributed to the fact that we may not have identified the most suitable fix to improve a user's experience.

Using our site

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

• Change colours, contrast levels and fonts
• Zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• 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)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand using plain English where possible.

We also provide assistive technology, enabling all website visitors to customise their experience through a range of options to suit their online accessibility and language needs. 

The Recite Me toolbar provides text-to-speech functionality, fully customisable styling features, reading aids and a translation tool with over 100 languages, including 65 text-to-speech voices and many other features.

Non-accessible Content

Below we have listed where the SECG website is reporting non-accessible issues in regard to single A and Double AA WCAG success criteria.

• A – 4.1.2 – Each interactive element i.e. headings, labels should have an accessible name.
• A – 2.1.1 – You should be able to navigate using a keyboard only.
• A – 1.3.1 – Visual information should also be represented in code form by using form labels or aria-described by i.e for hint text on an input field.
• A – 2.4.4 – The link should be descriptive telling the user where it will direct them to.
• A – 2.4.3 – Tabbing order should be from top to bottom then left to right as you navigate through the page using the keyboard tab.

Between our Marketing and Tech teams Recite Me will actively process all errors throughout the website using the Recite Me Accessibility checker to resolve issues and mitigate new errors as content is changed and created.

Reporting Accessibility Problems with this Website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of our website. If you encounter content that you cannot access, then please contact us on the details below and we will provide you with an accessible alternative.

• Phillip Fey, Website Manager
• Email: design@southessex.ac.uk
• Call: 0345 52 12345

Any feedback we receive we aim to get back to you within a suitable time. (If a response is requested).

If you are not happy with how we have responded to the issue you have raised with us about the accessibility of our website, then please contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS). The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for ensuring websites meet accessibility standards.

Third-party content and functionality

We may make use of third-party resources that embed content on our website. Wherever possible we will ensure these are conformant.

Technical Information About this Website’s Accessibility

Our organisation is committed to making its website accessible to all visitors, in line with regional regulations and we aim for conformance with the WCAG 2.1 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1) at level AA. 

Technical specifications

Accessibility of this website relies on the following technologies to work with the particular combination of web browsers and any assistive technologies or plugins installed on your computer:

These technologies are relied upon for conformance with the accessibility guidelines used.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Our accessibility journey is continuing. We regularly review our website and its content to identify and fix known issues. We can do this by running a check of our website with the Recite Me Accessibility Checker.

This statement is reviewed at least once a year and updated.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 10 May 2025. It was last reviewed on 3 June 2025.

This website was last tested on 15 May 2025. The test was carried out by the College's Web Manager.

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We provide a text relay service for people who are D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

If you contact us before your visit we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

Find out how to contact us here

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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).

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

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

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. Link

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as Word documents. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

The accessibility regulations do not 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.