Accessibility

Accessibility statement for edinburgh.gov.uk

This accessibility statement applies to www.edinburgh.gov.uk website and our core services.

This website is run by the City of Edinburgh Council.

How accessible this website is

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

  • Some PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software and provide no information on the structure of the document for assistive technologies. For example, the bin calendars cannot be accessed by assistive technologies.
  • The bin day calendars rely on visual perception of shape and colour to understand your bin day.
  • Some videos do not have accurate captions or text transcripts.
  • No videos have audio descriptions.
  • Our forms may not let you use autocomplete accurately.
  • The Smart Assistant chatbot may be difficult to use with a screen reader.

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 web@edinburgh.gov.uk.

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 10 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 web@edinburgh.gov.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 phone or visiting us in person

We provide contact services for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

We provide interpretation and translation.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The City of Edinburgh Council 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.

Unless planned resolution target is specifically stated against an item, we are working routinely with content creators and application suppliers to address all issues and to fully comply with WCAG 2.1 AA as soon as possible.

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

We do not plan to fix the following issues as the fall outside of the scope of the accessibility regulations. Where this is due to a certain deadline, we will provide accessible content from that deadline.

Time-based media

Videos published before 23 September 2020 may not have accurate captions or a text transcript and do not have audio descriptions, therefore fail success criteria

  • 1.2.1 Audio-only and video-only (Prerecorded)
  • 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded)
  • 1.2.3 Audio Description or Media Alternative (Prerecorded)
  • 1.2.5 Audio Description.

Videos and audio published from 23 September 2020 onward will have accurate captions or transcripts and audio descriptions.

PDFs and other 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.

Live video

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

Maps

Our maps are mostly accessible, however we do not audit these for accessibility as we do not provide maps for navigational purposes, and therefore these maps are exempt from the accessibility regulations.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have an accessibility working group that explores options to improve accessibility, including

  • engaging with third-party providers to ensure the platforms we use are accessible
  • training everyone that publishes to the web in creating accessible content
  • providing guidance to services on creating accessible multimedia content
  • moving away from PDF documents to web pages.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement  was last reviewed in April 2023.

This website was tested on 14 September 2020. A further assessment took place by end of March 2022, and April 2023.

We conducted manual testing, aided by automated tools and a screen reader.

Testing of content on third-party platforms at domains outwith edinburgh.gov.uk was conducted by the third party. This site at

Our Story Maps have been tested by ESRI. Download the Story Maps accessibility report (PDF).

Our testing methodology

We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test edinburgh.gov.uk:

We tested different pages to cover the 11 templates in use on the site, making sure to include pages that contained

  • PDF and other documents
  • images
  • videos
  • maps
  • content in more than one language
  • input controls

to ensure we covered the criteria that deal with these types of content.

To test webforms.edinburgh.gov.uk we tested six forms that included

  • images
  • maps
  • a variety of input controls.

To test the Council Tax account online we tested every page within the account.