Accessibility Statement

Accessibility statement for South Essex College

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

This website is run by South Essex College of Further and Higher Education. 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. AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

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

  • most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • live video streams do not have captions
  • some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

Email: digital@southessex.ac.uk

Call: 0345 52 12345

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

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

Andrew Havard, Design and Digital Manager, Marketing Team

Email: design@southessex.ac.uk

Call: 0345 52 12345

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, 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

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

South Essex College of Further and Higher Education 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

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.

The full guidelines are available at: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

  • Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1. We plan to add text alternatives for all images by December 2020. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
  • Some of our Element ID's are not unique. This makes it hard for assisted technologies to understand what the purpose of the element is. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1. We plan to ensure all our Element IDs are unique by December 2020. We'll make sure any new element IDs added are unique.
  • Most tooltips disappear as soon as the cursor moves. Also tooltips are not always present for all icons and images. This fails WCAG 1.4.13. We plan to ensure all icons and images contain tooltips where neccessary by April 2021.
  • On some occasions the link text we have used is too generic in its current context. This means it isn't clear where the user will reach when clicking on the link. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion  2.4.4. We plan to ensure all our links are clearly described so it is apparent to the user where they are navigating through by December 2020. In future we'll make sure that all of our links are descriptive and not too generic.
  • Some of our images should be marked as decorative This makes it confusing for screen readers to know whether the image is of value to the content on not. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 . We plan to ensure all decorative images are marked as such by April 2021.
  • Some of our text areas on forms do not have descriptions. This makes it hard for uses of assisted technologies to know what the area is for. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion  1.3.1, 3.3.2 and 4.1.2. We plan to address all forms and text area descriptions by April 2021.
  • When using HTML5, not all of our content is included in landmarks. It is best practice to include all content on the page in landmarks. In this way users of assistive technologies can use the landmarks for navigating the page without losing track of content. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion  1.3.1. We plan to ensure all our content is included within landmarks when using HTML5 by April 2021.

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.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 2 October 2020 It was last reviewed on 2 October 2020.

This website was last tested on 18 September 2020. The test was carried out by the College's Design and Digital team.