Website Accessibility Statement
This accessibility statement applies to:
- National Star website: https://www.nationalstar.org/
This website is run by National Star College. 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 300% without the text spilling off the screen
- navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
- listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)
- discern the structure and order of web pages and content
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 currently not fully accessible:
- when registering for email alerts some form fields do not have programmatic labels so are not announced in a meaningful way by a screen reader
- the PDF viewer widget is not accessible using a keyboard
- most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- older videos may be missing captions and audio description
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: Team-Communications@nationalstar.org
Telephone: 01242 527631
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in seven working days.
If you cannot view the map on our ‘contact us’ page, call or email us 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, contact us.
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.
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
National Star 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 below.
Non-accessible content
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
Images & videos
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).
Videos do not have audio description which means non-audio content is inaccessible to blind people. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.3 (audio description or media alternative (pre-recorded)) and 1.2.5 (audio description (pre-recorded)).
We plan to remove videos without audio description or add audio description to existing videos by 31 March 2021. When we publish new videos we will make sure they are audio described if required.
There are some images of text on our website that cannot be manipulated in a way that will help visually impaired users. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.5 (images of text).
Disproportionate burden
Interactive forms
Some of our interactive forms have accessibility issues. These include:
- Form fields are not announced correctly by a screen reader because some form controls are missing suitable programmatic labels. This fails WCAG success criterion 4.1.2 (Name, Role, Value)
- Error messaging is not descriptive. This fails WCAG success criterion 3.3.3 (Error suggestion)
- Error messaging is not announced by the screen reader. This fails WCAG success criterion 4.1.3 (Status message)
Our forms are built and hosted through third party software and ‘skinned’ to look like our website.
We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the above issues with the interactive tools and believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. This is because we do not have direct access to edit these forms and are reliant on the third party organisation to make the fixes. We are in touch with the third party to expedite a fix.
Carousel
The carousel on our website is currently difficult to use with just a keyboard. This fails WCAG success criteria 2.1.1 (Keyboard) and 2.4.7 (Focus visible).
We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the carousel and believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will review this when we review the design of our website, scheduled for 2021.
Parsing
When our website is run through the W3C HTML Validator it identifies a number of errors and warnings, which may impact how well assistive technology interacts with our website.
Following comprehensive assessment of the website with a range of assistive technologies we are confident that, in spite of the errors, the website is fully navigable by keyboard and with a screen reader.
We’ve assessed the cost of fixing all these validation issues on every page of our website and believe doing so would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will review this when we review the design of our website, scheduled for 2021.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
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.
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 22 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 22 September 2020.
This website was last tested on 14 August 2020. This website was tested for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.1 level A and level AA, and the test was carried out by Web Usability Partnership Ltd.
We used the Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM) approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test.
