Ipswich Borough Council is committed to ensuring that our website is accessible to as many users as possible, including those with disabilities.
This website is run by Ipswich Borough Council, and to ensure as many people as possible to be able to use this website we have include, as an example:
• change colours, contrast levels and fonts
• zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• 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 (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.
AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.
We strive to maintain high accessibility standards and follow the guidelines provided by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, ensuring our content is perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for all users.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Images
Some images contain text, so people with dyslexia or using a screen reader will not be able to read the information. This doesn't meet WCAG success criterion 1.4.5 (images of text). We plan to remove images containing text by December 2025.
When we publish new content, we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
PDFs
Some of the documents on our website are provided in PDF format. While we are working to ensure that these documents are accessible to everyone, task expected to be completed by December 2025, there may be some instances where certain PDF files are not fully accessible. This could be due to the nature of the document, or the software used to create it. In such cases, users might experience difficulties when navigating or reading these files with assistive technology.
We cannot always guarantee that documents produced by external organisations, and published on our websites, are fully accessible. We have to host a considerable number of documents in relation to the local plan and neighbourhood plans and it is not possible to get all the different organisations to adhere to our accessibility requirements.
If this is the case and you need a document in an accessible format, please email us at communications@ipswich.gov.uk
How we are addressing this
We are continuously reviewing our PDFs and, where possible, converting or providing alternatives in accessible formats, we expect to have completed this process by December 2025. If you experience any difficulties accessing a PDF document, or if you need it in a different format, please contact us using the details below. We are happy to work with you to provide the information you need.
Reporting Accessibility Issues
If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, please contact us by emailing communications@ipswich.gov.uk or calling 01473 432000.
We aim to respond to all accessibility-related queries within 3 working days.
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).
Compliance Status
This website is partially compliant with WCAG AA standards due to some content not meeting the accessibility criteria. The Government Digital Service is working on how to assess the new success criteria in WCAG 2.2 and will start monitoring for the extra criteria in October 2024. We are actively working on resolving any existing issues and preparing for the new requirements.
This website is partially compliant with the WCAG AA standard, due to non-compliances and exemptions listed below.
Disproportionate burden
We don't categorise any of the accessibility issues on www.ipswich.gov.uk as a disproportionate burden to fix within the meaning of the regulations (with the exception of PDFs and other documents).
We've published a disproportionate burden assessment that explains:
• we carried out detailed accessibility checks of www.ipswich.gov.uk as this is our most important content
• we carried out basic checks of our other websites - as paying for detailed checks would be a disproportionate burden on our organisation
• some of our systems and interactive forms are built and hosted through third party software and ‘skinned’ to look like our website but are not fully accessible. We do not have direct control over these third-party systems. Paying to fix the issues would be a disproportionate burden on our organisation
• we planned to fix the top 10% most viewed documents on www.ipswich.gov.uk by December 2025 - as fixing every document would be a disproportionate burden on our organisation
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared in September 2020. It was last reviewed in October 2024.
A detailed accessibility check of each type of page www.ipswich.gov.uk is planned to be carried out in November 2024 by an external company.
We carried out our testing based on a sample of our most used pages, forms, documents, and other media.
We used a combination of methods to check this website, including:
• automated software (Siteimprove)
• manual sampling (using WAVE and other tools)