Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to greateroxford.org

This website is run by Oxford 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 using browser or device settings
  • zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using a keyboard or speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

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:

  • Some pages on this website have a high reading age (17-20 years)
  • Interactive elements may not change meaningfully enough when selected
  • Some inline hyperlinks are smaller than 48px in height

Feedback and contact information

If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact pressoffice@oxford.gov.uk

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille email pressoffice@oxford.gov.uk

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 10 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’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

Oxford 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

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AAA standard.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AAA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Some pages have a high ‘reading age’ – Failing WCAG 2.0 AAA 3.1.5

  1. Oxford City Council writes to Government about devolution and local government reorganisation in Oxfordshire – Reading age of 19 years
  2. Statement on Government’s plans for Devolution – Reading age of 18.5 years
  3. Statement on discussion on Devolution and potential creation of a Strategic Authority – Reading age of 18.5 years
  4. Council cabinets and executives set to discuss future shape of Oxfordshire’s local government – Reading age of 18 years
  5. A greater Oxford unitary council to improve services and bring them closer to local people – Reading age of 17 years

These informational pages need to remain at a relatively high reading age for clarity / avoidance of misunderstanding. As such, there is no plan to rewrite them at this time.

Some interactive elements are not very big – Failing WCAG 2.1 AAA 2.5.5

  1. A few inline anchor links are 25px tall, which is below the recommended 48px

Increasing the line height of the inline anchor links would affect the flow of the surrounding text, so for the sake of visual cohesion we are content to leave these link heights as 25px.

Some images do not have appropriate alt text – Failing WCAG 2.0 A 1.1.1

  1. A few images on this websites have default alt text generated by the filename, such as “P90115720 Highres Engine Marriage In M Min”, which is not descriptive enough for screenreaders.

We are working through these images and hope to have appropriate alt text added before 6th June 2025.

Controls do not meaningfully change when selected – Failing WCAG 2.2 AAA 2.4.13

  1. Buttons and links on this website change in appearance when interacted with but not to the level that 2.2 AAA requires.

We are satisfied that the appearance of controls passes WCAG 2.1 AA standards and will not be pursuing WCAG 2.2 AAA in this area at this time.

Disproportionate burden

Some controls do not change appearance when they are selected – Failing WCAG 2.0 AA 2.4.7

  1. Some inputs from the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin may be visible or invisible depending on consent preferences at the time.
  2. Google’s reCaptcha widget contains hidden input elements which are not user-controlled

Missing ARIA label / description IDs – Failing WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.1

  1. Some label / description elements specified by ‘aria-labelledby’ / ‘aria-describedby’ do not exist within the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin

Some form controls do not have labels – Failing WCAG 2.0 A 1.3.1

  1. Google’s reCaptcha widget contains an input without a matching label

Some interactive elements are not very big – Failing WCAG 2.1 AAA 2.5.5

  1. Some buttons within the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin are smaller than 48px in either width or height

Some elements are fully or partly obscured – Failing WCAG 2.2 AA 2.4.11

  1. The cookie consent banner covers elements of the page until it is interacted with. This is anticipated behaviour.

Some adjacent links with the same destination are not combined – Failing WCAG 2.0 A 1.1.1

  1. When a news item is listed on the Latest Updates page with an accompanying image, both the title and image link to the news item but in separate <a> tags

This site is reliant on WordPress Gutenberg layout blocks and as such we cannot control this element.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 21st May 2025. It was last reviewed on 30th May 2025.

This website was last tested on 30th May 2025 against the WCAG 2.2 AAA standard.

The test was carried out by XIST2. All pages were tested using automated testing tools provided by Silktide and manually reviewed by XIST2 and the Greater Oxford team.