Website accessibility
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Council
About our website
Website accessibility
Website accessibility
Our website accessibility statement, access to our information and services, where we know our site doesn't meet accessibility regulations and our plan to fix accessibility issues.
This accessibility statement applies to web content and forms on the main Bristol City Council website. It excludes some applications and tools that we use but it includes the common user journeys:
online payments
job search
paying council tax
reporting an issue with bins
This website is run by Bristol City Council. It's designed to be used by as many people as possible. The text should be clear and simple to understand. You should be able to:
change colours, contrast levels and fonts
zoom in up to 300% and read the text
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
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:
some form inputs are more difficult to complete because they don't have auto-complete values for commonly saved information
some form inputs are not keyboard operable
the date and time picker on our missed bin or recycling collection form
the date picker for registering births is difficult to use
on some web forms there is no option to extend the session length and prevent session time out
radio buttons on some of our online forms have a focus indicator style that is difficult to see, making it difficult to work out which form field you're on
a few buttons and icons have mismatched text and accessible names or are missing accessible names
some form inputs do not provide clear error suggestions, such as when a form asks for your date of birth or to register a birth
the colour contrast on some elements is not high enough, which affects some people's ability to perceive content
heading styles are missing or in the wrong order on some pages
some iframes do not have titles, which makes it harder for screen reader users to understand the contents
some of our YouTube videos do not have transcripts, captions or audio descriptions
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 us using our
Accessibility feedback form
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
Feedback and contact information
If you need information in a different format, like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording, British Sign Language or Braille, contact us using our
Accessibility feedback form
and tell us:
the web address (URL) of the content
your name and email address
the format you need
We'll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days. Delivery of the alternative format could take longer based on the type of alternative format that you need.
Find contact details for our different services
Contact us by phone or by visiting us in person
We provide a text relay service for people who are d/Deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment but you can speak to our team using BTs text relay app.
Phone lines are open 8.30am to 5pm Monday to Thursday, 8.30am to 4.30pm Friday.
Sign Video British Sign Language (BSL) Interpreting.
BSL Interpreting is available Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm. Face to face BSL interpreting can be arranged in advance of an in person appointment.
Find contact details for our different services
Visits to our citizen service point
At our citizen service point, we provide:
wheelchair access and specially lowered desks
mini-loop facilities
British Sign Language available through a video link
phone interpreters available for customers whose first language is not English.
face to face appointments available behind a protective screen
free wi-fi
free computer access
More about our Citizen Service Point.
Technical information about this website's accessibility
Compliance status
This website is partially compliant with the
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard
. We're committed to making our websites accessible in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Non-accessible content
Content that is not accessible is outlined below with details of:
where it fails the success criteria
planned dates for when issues will be fixed
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations on bristol.gov.uk
Content that's hard to access or not perceivable
Videos without captions, transcripts or audio descriptions
Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations (PSBAR)
require that audio and video recordings made available from September 23 2020 must meet accessibility standards, as defined by the
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA.
We've added captions to most of our YouTube video library but some older shared videos lack captions.
This fails success criteria 1.2.2, captions.
Documents that are hard to read or navigate
Some documents have:
missing or incorrectly nested headings
a missing table of contents
complex tables
unclear content
elements in the wrong order
alt text missing
This makes them difficult to read or navigate with some kinds of assistive technology.
This fails success criteria 1.3.1, information and relationships.
We've assessed that making some documents fully accessible could be a disproportionate burden in terms of cost versus value but will work to make essential service documents accessible.
Some web pages contain content that doesn't convey enough information or meaning about structure
Some pages contain pseudo-content that's inserted with CSS. This means that some content is not perceivable when a user disables the stylesheet to read or use the page.
This fails success criteria 1.3.1, information and relationships.
Content that's hard to operate or inoperable
No option to extend web form timeout
Some of our web forms don't offer an option to extend the session before timing out. This fails success criteria 2.2.1 Timing Adjustable.
The colour contrast between some elements is not high enough when using focus indicator
Insufficient colour contrast makes text and elements difficult to distinguish, especially for people with vision impairment or colour blindness. This fails 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum).
Headings missing or in the wrong order
Headings that are missing or in the wrong order make it difficult for some users to orient themselves, especially those with cognitive or visual disabilities. This fails 2.4.6 (Headings and labels).
We aim to fix the colour contrast and headings issues by spring 2026.
Content that's not understandable
Language of page
Some of our PDF documents do not have the Language of page set to English in the HTML. This fails 3.1.1 Language of Page.
We've identified PDFs with missing language attributes and created a backlog that we are working through.
Content that's hard to read
Some content is technical or difficult to understand as it is not written in plain English.
Most content is designed to meet a lower secondary education reading level.
Some content is designed for business audiences with specific knowledge or expertise. This fails success criteria 3.1.5 (AAA) Reading level.
Accessibility issues for our third-party applications and solutions
Form builder product, Orbeon
We have identified the following fails on success criteria:
1.3.5 Identify Input Purpose. Some common web form inputs are hard to auto-fill correctly because they lack common auto-complete values.
1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum). ‘Tell us' links have insufficient contrast. ‘Tell us' error text has insufficient contrast.
2.1.1 Keyboard. Links on ‘tell us about a problem' pages lose focus
2.2.1 Timing Adjustable. ‘Tell us about a problem' form times out
3.2.1 On Focus. Focus moves away from links on ‘tell us about a problem' page
2.4.7 Focus Visible. In some of our web forms, the focus indicator isn't visible before a radio button in a set has been selected. This makes it difficult to operate the radio buttons with a keyboard as you can't always see where you are in the form. It can also make it difficult to see when links have been selected.
We are investigating how the issues can be addressed in our third-party form building solutions. Contact us to be notified when we publish the fix date for these issues.
Jobs website, iTrent
We have identified the following fails on our
jobs website
on success criteria:
4.1.1 Parsing. Issue with an input tag used as child of a
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