Accessibility Statement

This accessibility statement applies to the Heart of Worcestershire College website.

This website is run by Heart of Worcestershire College (HoW College). We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website and we're committed to providing web accessibility for everyone no matter how they access the web content. 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 hope that our website it easy to access however if you would like further tools to enhance your experience we've installed the ReciteMe toolbar. Simply click on accessibility at the top of any of our pages to launch the toolbar where you'll have access to features such as text to speech, colour changes, different font styles and sizes and much more! 

How accessible this website is

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

• Some alt text is not picked up by screen readers
• Some elements of the page of poor colour contrast that make it difficult to distinguish between foreground and background colours
• Some links are not distinguished from surrounding text in a way that does not rely on color
• Some of our pages and features are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
• Most PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software

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 please email accessreggroup@howcollege.ac.uk

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

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: accessreggroup@howcollege.ac.uk

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 telephone or visiting in person

Heart of Worcestershire College does not currently have a textphone. If you need to use this service we recommend that you contact the College via services such as Relay UK. To do so you will need to dial 18001 before the phone number you are calling. If you’re using a smartphone with the Relay UK app, 18001 is automatically included before the number you want to dial. 

If you are visiting us in-person, please contact us via accessreggroup@howcollege.ac.uk with any requirements you may need and we will do our best to facilitate. Please note that we don't have induction hoops on-site.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Heart of Worcestershire College is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

We are aware that this website is only partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard. The non-accessible sections are listed below and have been identified following tests using AXE DevTools

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non- accessible content

WCAG 1.1.1 Non-text Content - Images

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 (non-text content).

We will continue to upload images with a text alternative to our website. We have worked through the current images on our site to ensure text alternatives are available. In some areas we are experiencing issues where functionality of images overrides the alt text however, we are working to rectify this with our web team

WCAG 1.4.1 Use of Colour - Links must be distinguishable without relying on colour

Ensure links are distinguished from surrounding text in a way that does not rely on color

This applies to breadcrumbs across the website - including Contact Us, Latest News, About, Student Life, etc.

This will be rectified by 30th April 2024

WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) - Elements must have sufficient colour contrast

Ensures the contrast between foreground and background colors meets WCAG 2 AA contrast ratio thresholds

This applies to a multitude of areas across our website due to the College brand colours not complying with WCAG 2.1 AA standard. The College team are working through areas where this applies and updating as soon as possible. Area include but are not limited to:

Course pages – where current colour ratios do not meet accessibility standards
Apply now button on course pages
Subject headings on media gallery pages
Tour headings under each location in ‘Our Campuses’
Accordion Header – ‘Fusion Hair Salon’

All pages- when the keyboard tabs into the 'Quicklinks' there is still poor colour contrast. The pale blue text on a blue background does not have sufficient colour contrast as it is smaller sized text

All pages-At 200% zoom and more, the issue: The How to apply button has poor colour contrast is still outstanding- this is now an issue at 200% zoom and more)

All pages- At 200%, content within the hamburger menu do not have sufficient colour contrast

• All pages- Please note the colour contrast in the cookie banner does not have sufficient colour contrast

This will be rectified by 30th April 2024

WCAG 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) - Elements must have sufficient colour contrast - Third party managed pages – Shop

We are aware that https://ip.e-paycapita.com/AIP/itemSelectionPage.do?link=showItemSelectionPage&siteId=798&languageCode=EN&source=AIP does not comply with accessibility regulations in regards to colour contrasts. This page is externally managed by Capita Software Services, therefore this was flagged for investigation in January 2023.

We aimed to have this rectified by 30th April, however as a externally managed page we will monitor progress and update accordingly. Update: Our third-party suppliers are working to develop a design that adheres to the WCAG AA guidelines and we will work to have these changes implemented by April 2024

WCAG 1.4.4 - Resize Text

• All pages- At 400% zoom, the webpage does not reflow correctly and no content is visible for the users. The banners cover all content

• All pages- At 200% zoom, under Quick links 'Career service & support' is partially cut off and does not resize correctly

WCAG 2.1.1 Keyboard

• Home- Please note there is no keyboard function on 'Accept all cookies'.
• All pages- Content within the magnifying glass is not accessible using the keyboard. Once opened, the keyboard is not visible and the close button and other options cannot be accessed
• All pages- the dropdown menus are now accessible using the keyboard, however the content at the bottom of 'Courses' cannot be clearly viewed as it is longer than the webpage
• All pages- the back to the top button is not accessible using the keyboard

This will be rectified by 30th April 2024

WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible

• All pages- The keyboard focus becomes lost after tabbing from 'How to apply'. The focus is not visible on the carousel
• About- The keyboard focus is not visible on links across the webpage. This includes Upcoming Events and Media gallery
• Latest News- the keyboard has to tab twice between each article, this is confusing for the users

This will be rectified by 30th April 2024

WCAG 4.1.1 Parsing - Id attribute value must be unique

Ensures every id attribute value is unique

This applies to Archers restaurant and Fusion Hair Salon pages within the ‘open to the public’ section of the website

This will be rectified by 1st April 2024

WCAG 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value - PDFs and other documents

We are aware that some documents on our website, particularly PDFs are not currently accessible. We are currently working to update these documents and will be providing mandatory training for all staff across the College regarding their role in meeting accessibility standards.

Area where documents may not be accessible include:

Governance – Committee Meetings
Governance – Key Documents
Legal – Policies and Documents

We will continue to check all current and future documents across our website to ensure they meet accessibility requirements. Users of our website are also able to access accessible copies of documents by contacting accessreggroup@howcollege.ac.uk

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

PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value).

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. 

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.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Our Accessibility Regulation Group meet once a term to discuss improvements to cross-college accessibility functions. Terms of reference for this group can be found here

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on Friday 18th October 2019. It was last reviewed on Thursday 11th January 2024.

This website was last tested on Monday 30th January 2023. The test was carried out by Heart of Worcestershire College using AxeDev Tools.

We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test. These pages included the most frequently viewed areas of our website as record by heatmaps - About, Contact Us, Courses, Student Life and Latest News.

Previous versions of the accessibility statement can be found here

This website will be reviewed frequently via internal testing by both staff and students and will undergo a whole-site annual review each year. The next review date will be 30th April 2023. 

In addition, the Website was audited by the Government Digital Service on Thursday 27th October 2022. The full report can be found here: Accessibility report for www.howcollege.ac.uk (accessibility-monitoring.service.gov.uk) (accessibility-monitoring.service.gov.uk)

Please note Heart of Worcestershire College is currently in the process of redesigning the current website. The new website will be built, taking into account all accessibility regulations, to meet WCAG 2.1 AA standard.

ReciteMe

The Recite Me cloud-based technology toolbar is available at the top of all of our webpages giving you the option to customise the content to consume it in a way that works best for you.

For help on accessibility visit My Web My Way

Helpful contacts

AbilityNet – provides free information and advice, individual assessment of technology needs, the supply of assistive technology with free support, a programme of awareness education, and consultancy for employers on system and workstation adaptations – http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/