This accessibility statement applies to the democracy pages on Medway Council’s website at democracy.medway.gov.uk. These pages include the calendar of council meetings, the Forward Plan of forthcoming Cabinet decisions, agendas, reports and minutes for formal council Cabinet and Committee meetings and the council’s e-petition facility.
This website is run by Medway Council using Civica Modern.Gov software. We monitor the accessibility of this site and ask Modern.Gov to fix accessibility issues that arise.
We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. Which 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.
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 PDFs are not fully accessible to screen reader software
- Aria hidden elements may contain focusable elements
- some links with the same name have a similar purpose
- some page content is not contained by landmarks.
How to get information in an accessible format
If you need information on the democracy.medway.gov.uk website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille you can fill in our online form:
Request information in an accessible format
Or you can phone 01634 333 333.
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 20 working days.
Reporting accessibility problems
We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of the democracy.medway.gov.uk website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, then please let us know by filling in our online form.
Report accessibility problems with the democracy.medway.gov.uk website
Or you can phone 01634 333 333.
We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 20 working days.
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 are 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 deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment. The number is 18001 01634 333 333.
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 and visit us in person.
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
Medway Council is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.
Older browsers
For security reasons, we only support TLS 1.2 and higher security protocols, and this means that some older browsers will not show the site.
How our site looks and work is based on HTML5, and we test for and support the following browsers:
You may experience unexpected behaviour in other browsers, although we use fully validated code which should work on any modern (HTML5) browser and screen readers.
Compliance status
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the known accessibility issues below.
We're currently liasing with our software supplier to upgrade to the latest software. After the upgrade, a sample of pages will be tested against the WCAG 2.2 standard and an updated accessibility statement published.
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.
Aria hidden elements may contain focusable elements
This fails WCAG AA 4.1.2 (name, role, value). We aim to complete this by 2 January 2025.
Some links with the same name have a similar purpose
This fails WCAG A 2.4.4 (link purpose). We aim to complete this by 2 January 2025.
Some page content is not contained by landmarks
This fails WCAG A success criterion 1.3.1 (info and relationships).We aim to complete this by 2 January 2025.
Disproportionate burden
You may find navigating some of these pages difficult depending on their level of web accessibility. For example, any content, including PDFs, published before 23 September 2018 may be non-compliant.
We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues and we believe that doing so would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations taking into account content on these pages dates back to 2001.
Planning documents are submitted by residents and private companies who are not required by law to submit accessible documents. There is no legal planning reason we can reject them, even if they are not accessible. You can request these in an accessible format.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared on 2 March 2021 and edited on 8 October 2024.
This website was last tested on 19 January 2022. The test was carried out by Axe. A sample of pages were tested based on user needs.