Accessibility

We are committed to making our website available to as many people as possible, meeting the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act, and make every effort to ensure our communications are accessible to those with special needs, including those with visual, hearing, cognitive and motor impairments.

Many Internet users can find websites difficult to use due to the way they have been designed. We recognise that this is an important issue and do our best to ensure that our website is accessible in accordance with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) guidelines.

All pages validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict, use structured semantic markup and the CSS has also been validated.

We strive to obey the spirit of the UK Disability Discrimination Act 1995 with respect to the provision of services online, as required by the Disability Rights Commission. If you come across a page you find difficult to use please let us know.

Accessibility Design

Many Internet users with disabilities find websites difficult or even impossible to use simply because of the way they are designed. This website has been designed to be as accessible as possible and to be compatible with the types of adaptive technology used by people with disabilities, including screen readers.

As such, visitors can control the size of the text and can use "access keys" on the keyboard rather than the mouse to navigate through pages.

The stylesheet uses relative font sizes and is written to display pages correctly in most commonly used browsers. In early versions of browsers and browsing devices that do not support stylesheets at all, the flow of the content has been tested to ensure it entirely retains its sense.

The site is free of frames and uses a cascading style sheet for visual layout.

Tables are used for tabular data, but we have avoided using them to dictate the layout of a page wherever possible.

Internal Navigation Links

At the start of every page are invisible links providing direct access to content, navigation and the accessibility statement, each with access keys.

Access Keys

Most modern browsers support jumping to specific links by using "access keys". Our access keys use the UK government access keys system where applicable and these access keys take you to the relevant page within the site.

These simple instructions will enable you to use "access keys" on Mac and Windows.

Macintosh Users: Press ctrl + the "access" key.
Windows Users: Safari 3+ and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6+ Press alt and the "access" key, then press the enter key to trigger the action.
Firefox 1+: Press shift and alt and the "access" key.
Opera. 9+: Press shift and esc, then select the appropriate "access" key from the list displayed.

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Javascript

The site has been configured to allow users access to its full range of functionality whether or not they have JavaScript enabled in their browsers.

Where JavaScript is used, it is only used to enhance the user experience. It is never essential.