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Accessibility Statement & Disclaimer

Accessibility Statement

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Accessibility statement

This statement applies to content published on the http://victimsservice.org/ domain.

This website is run by the Victims and Survivors Service. It is designed to be used by as many people as possible. The text should be clear and simple to understand. You should be able to:

  • zoom in up to 300% without problems
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • use most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

How accessible this website is

Parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

  • some pages and document attachments are not clearly written
  • some pages have poor colour contrast
  • some text overlaps when enlarged
  • some images do not have appropriate alternative text
  • some buttons are not correctly identified
  • many documents are in PDF format and are not fully accessible

How to request content in an accessible format

If you need information in a different format contact us by using the enquiries email: enquiries@vssni.org and letting us know:

  • the web address (URL) of the content
  • your name and email address
  • the format you need, for example, audio CD, braille, BSL or large print, accessible PDF

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or you think we’re not meeting the accessibility requirements please contact us at the enquiries address given above.

Enforcement procedure

If you are not happy with our response contact the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) (https://www.equalityni.org/Home)

The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’).

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Victims and Survivors Service is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

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

The content that is not accessible is outlined below with details of:

  • where it fails the success criteria
  • planned dates for when issues will be fixed

Some text overlaps when enlarged using our accessibility widget. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.4. However, this is unavoidable as this involves true text enlargement which allows extra forms of accessibility. In general, the site works with standard text enlargement through zooming the image in the standard way without overlap or any loss of structural coherence.

The site has over-relied on PDF downloads, many of which are not optimised for access. A few are image PDFs for which a readable HTML version is not available. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1Parsing and 1.4.9 Images of Text. This is a complex issue, as some PDFs are both necessary and desirable, some are legacy documents created prior to April 20 which we will provide aa accessible version of promptly on request and the remainder will require replacement. These will be either converted to HTML5 documents or, if that is not possible, with PDFs which have been maximised for accessibility. This requires a development and resources plan which we are now implementing and we plan to complete by March 2021.

The u tag is used to underline text. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. We plan to ensure all new uploads only use underlining for links and to remove underlining from all frequently accessed pages by December 2020.

Areas of text, along with focused links and buttons sometimes do not have enough contrast. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3. We have provided an accessibility widget which allows for a variety of alternate contrasts which largely ameliorates this issue. We plan to improve contrast issues with the launch of our new website over the coming year.

If you have any problems using this website, tell us using the enquiries email: enquiries@vssni.org

How we tested this website

This website was and is currently being tested for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 level A and level AA, and these tests have been carried out internally throughout the year as we have been developing a new website structure and design by the Management information Systems team.

We used the Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM) approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We plan to identify and fix issues according to the timescales shown for each area above.

This statement was originally prepared in March 2012. It was last updated on September 17 2020.

Disclaimer

This website is intended to provide helpful advice and information.  It is not a definitive statement of law in any regard.

The VSS and the authors of this website do not accept liability for any loss which may arise from reliance on the information contained on this site.

This site provides links to a number of other websites.  This is done to provide visitors to our site with easy access to other relevant sources of information.

The VSS cannot guarantee the accuracy of the contents of other websites to which links have been provided.   The VSS is not responsible for the content of any linked site or any link in a linked site.  The VSS is not responsible for any transmission received from any linked site.  The inclusion of a link does not imply that the VSS endorses or has approved the linked site.

Service availability

While the VSS shall endeavour to make this site available at all times, the VSS will not be liable if, for any reason, the site is unavailable for any period of time. Access to this site may be suspended at any time without prior notice being given.

Advisory material not legal advice

The information on this site comprises views and helpful information provided by VSS; it does not constitute legal or other professional advice.

This site offers links to other sites thereby enabling you to leave this site and go directly to the linked site.

Changes to this disclaimer

We keep our disclaimer notice under regular review. This disclaimer notice was last updated on 17 September 2020.

 

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