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Accessibility statement

Gloucestershire County Council is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability. The following accessibility statement applies to Gloucestershire County Council run websites, specifically:

This website and sub-domains are run by Gloucestershire County Council. 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 200% 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.

This website and sub-domains are designed to be compliant with the international standard Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 (WCAG) – Level AA.

Using this Website

Accessible Features

This website uses a widget that contains several Accessible features that can be used by users with specific requirements. The widget is available on the top right-hand side of the header menu.

These features include: -

Contrast & Font Size

Changing the contrast and font sizes of text can increase legibility for some users.

This website has two colour contrast settings, firstly, the “default colour scheme” which provides a suitable level of contrast for most users and satisfies the accessibility standards. However, if a user feels the colour contrast is too low in areas the website also contains a “high contrast scheme” which satisfies all accessibility standards for colour contrast.

A user can change the contrast settings by clicking on the icons at the top right of screen. For a user using voice recognition please say, “Switch to colour scheme” and “Switch to high contrast scheme” respectively for the same result.

To increase the font size, click on the icons at the top right of the screen. For a user using voice recognition please say, “Switch to normal font size”, “Switch to big font size” and “Switch to biggest font size” respectively for the same result. The user can also use the browser’s own zoom facility. The website will work up to 200%

Further information on accessibility options

The RNIB has a webpage with information on options that computers have which can make it easier for people with low or no vision to use them. -RNB Accessibility Options

Accessible Alternatives

Efforts have been made to create accessible alternatives for content that does not meet standards where possible. Where appropriate we may be able to deliver content to users in accordance with their needs. Please see "Feedback and contact information" section for further details.

How accessible this website is

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

  • This website uses JavaScript to deliver certain features. Please make sure you have JavaScript turned on within your browser to deliver full features.
  • Cookiebot buttons are not focus visible at 400% zoom.
  • Live video streams do not have captions.

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:

Communications Team (Digital)
Shire Hall
Westgate St
Gloucester
GL1 2TG

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

If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, call or email us 01452 427554 / communications@gloucestershire.gov.uk for directions.

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, use the "Anything wrong" form at the bottom of the page giving you problems or contact: communications@gloucestershire.gov.uk (please include the page link) or call 01452 427554.

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.

Our offices have audio induction loops, or if you contact us before your visit we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter.

Find out how to contact us - www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/contact-us

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Gloucestershire County 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 2.2 AA standard, due to ‘the non-compliances and exemptions’ listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

During our last review of this website we have fixed all major issues that failed WCAG 2.2, please see "Resolutions Section" for detailed summary of the fixes.

Here are the issues that have come to our attention that there are areas of the website that fail to meet WCAG 2.2: -

Issues with Cookiebot

It has been discovered during the audit there are specific accessibility issues with the Cookiebot by UserCentrics. This is a third-party widget that is not under the control of Gloucestershire or our main web developers. The suppliers have confirmed that this issue is on their development list.

Not all the buttons on the Cookiebot are keyboard accessible. This fails success criteria WCAG 2.1.1 Keyboard. A current workaround is to use the "Show Details" link. This changes the widget to a popup layout where the buttons are keyboard accessible.

The Cookiebot buttons are not focus visible at 400% zoom. This issues varies depending on the device you are using. This fails success criteria WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible. We would advise to use the website at 200% zoom when viewing the Cookiebot.

Issues with PDFs and other documents

During testing some PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards. These were documents that were published after 23rd September 2018.

We are currently analysing our processes for PDFs and other non-HTML Documents. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

Non-HTML documents published before 23rd September 2018 are exempt from the accessibility regulations. For further details please review "Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations" section of this accessibility statement.

Issues with images, video and audio

Live video streams have captions auto added by YouTube, not all videos are currently checked for the accuracy of their captioning.

Issues with colour contrast on forms

On the Proud to Care site provider registration form - the smaller text within the form (such as 'including postcode') does not have sufficient colour contrast.  We will be working to correct the form.

Issues with Hamburger Menu

On the Proud to Care site at 200% zoom, once the hamburger menu icon is expanded and the keyboard expands 'Our Services' the keyboard then tabs through the rest of the menu links. This means 'Contact' (and other links across the page) become obscured and it therefore fails WCAG 2.4.7 Focus, not obscure. We will be working to correct this.

Issues with Accessibility Statement Links

The links across the statement page do not have sufficient colour contrast when they receive focus from both the keyboard and the mouse. We will be working to correct this.

Resolutions of Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Since this statement was last updated the following accessibility issues have been resolved.

RESOLVED: Issues with Hamburger Menu

Proud to Care site - This refers to the hamburger menu icon having keyboard focus issues at 200% zoom and more. Our web developers have applied a fix as of June 2025. This should now pass WCAG 2.4.7 Focus Visible.

RESOLVED: Issues with HTML links

This refers to the link 'About Proud to Care' not being visible to screen-reader users. This potentially failed Success Criteria WCAG 1.3.1. The website templates have been fixed all items are now accessible.

We are also checking that links describe their purpose using link-text alone. This fails WCAG success criterion 2.4.4. Our footer links to social media websites now have appropriate link text.

We are reviewing the content on our website. When new content is published, we will make sure the link description is available within link text alone.

Disproportionate burden

We have no issues that would impose a disproportionate burden to fix.

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

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 have either fixed these or replaced 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. For example, we do not plan to fix historical Traffic Regulation Orders.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations. We do use YouTube which auto-captions video.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

The new version of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG 2.2 were published on 5th October 2023.

This has replaced WCAG 2.1 as the legally required accessibility standard in October 2024.

Our accessibility roadmap shows how and when we plan to improve accessibility on this website.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was initially prepared on 14th June 2021. Gloucestershire will review this policy every year in accordance with the regulations. This policy was last reviewed on 7 August 2025.

This website was tested on 5th April 2025 by the Cabinet Office.

Further accessibility audits were carried out by Gloucestershire and our website provider, People Places Lives Limited, on the 3rd May and 4th June 2025.

To prepare this statement an accessibility test was carried out by People Places Lives QA Team. The most viewed pages were tested using automated testing tools by our website team. A further audit of the website was carried out to the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.

We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test.