This accessibility statement applies to the Portsmouth City Council website (www.portsmouth.gov.uk). Satellite sites have their own accessibility statement.
This website has been developed to comply with the WCAG 2.1 AA standard for accessibility as a minimum.
This website is run by Portsmouth City 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 300% 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, and aim to adhere to the national average reading age of 9.
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 not fully accessible:
- most older PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- live video streams do not have captions or transcripts
- some of our online services are hosted via third parties and you may find them difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
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: DCE@portsmouthcc.gov.uk
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.
If you cannot view the map on our ‘Civic Offices’ 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:
We will respond to your email within 5 working days.
If you’re not satisfied with how we’ve dealt with your problem, you can find information on a making a complaint here.
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).
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
Portsmouth City 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.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
Issues with PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents
Many of our older PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be marked up so they’re accessible to a screen reader.
The Accessibility regulations 2018 – PDFs don’t require us to fix these or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.
We have been working on remediating some older PDFs, prioritising these based on the number of times they have been downloaded (according to Google Analytics). Any new PDFs (our universal format for documents on the website) that are published meet accessibility standards.
Some of our resource documents, such as posters, are designed to be downloaded and printed, so these may not be fully accessible.
Some documents that are essential to providing our services, such as forms published as PDF and Word documents, may not yet be accessible. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.
Occasionally, a set of documents will need to be published where remediating these for accessibility would cause a disproportionate burden to the council. You can view our disproportionate burden assessments here.
Issues with video and audio
Live video streams do not have captions or transcripts. We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.
Third party systems
We require that any new third-party systems we procure for the website are compliant with the WCAG 2.1 AA standard. Third-party systems are partly or wholly under the control of the suppliers who provide them, and we are aware that not all of these are fully accessible. We are continuing to work with suppliers to ensure the accessibility of all online services.
Third party integrations include:
- Easipermits Parking permits and renewals portal
- Capita payments portal
- OCM Live Penalty Charge Notice portal
- Licensing and planning portal
- School admissions portal
- Council Tax portal
- Synergy Education Portal
- Citizen Portal (MyEducation)
- InTend procurement portal
- My Bus Pass
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 23 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 7 June 2023.
This website was last tested on 19 April 2021. We plan to re-test on 30 June 2023.
The test was carried out by Portsmouth City Council’s in-house development team with in-depth knowledge of the WCAG 2.1 AA standard and completed using assistive tools such as the Chrome extension – WAVE Evaluation Tool. You can read the full accessibility test report here.
We tested a sample of pages, including the website’s most popular pages (informed by Google Analytics).
We use Silktide’s accessibility testing to automatically test our sites every five days. We regularly review the results and manually do our own checks internally to decide on the actions we need to take.