Welsh Language Commissioner's Accessibility Statement
This website is run by the Welsh Language Commissioner (the Commissioner). The Commissioner wants everyone to be able to access its website. For example, that means that you should be able to:
- Change colours, contrasts, and fonts
- Zoom the text over 150% without the text disappearing off the screen
- Listen to most of the website using a screen reader
The Commissioner is trying to make the text of the website easy to understand.
Accessibility of this website
The Commissioner knows that some parts of this website are not fully accessible, for example:
- PDF documents are not accessible to screen reading software
- Some links on the website are not self-explanatory for a screen reader user
- There are some areas where colour contrast is low
- The alt attributes are missing for some images, graphics, text, and forms
- There are some tables where the columns and rows have not been identified
- Sometimes 'click here' is used, without surrounding text
- A few tables that are not accessible are used
- Most documents are not accessible to screen reader software
Contact information and feedback
If you need information about the website in a different format such as an accessible PDF, large print, easy-to-read version, audio recording or braille:
- call 0345 603 3221 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm)
- e-mail: post@welshlanguagecommissioner.wales
The Commissioner will consider your request and contact you within 5 working days.
Reporting accessibility problems with the Commissioner's website
The Commissioner is seeking to improve the accessibility of the website. If you encounter problems that are not listed on the page or you do not think it meets accessibility requirements, please e-mail the Senior Governance Officer post@welshlanguagecommissioner.wales
Enforcement procedure
The Equality and Human Rights Commission 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 the Commissioner responds to your complaint, please contact the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Technical information about the accessibility of the website
The Commissioner 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 complies in part with version A 2.1 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, due to the compliance deficiencies listed below.
Non-accessible content
The content below is not accessible for the following reasons:
- some link text does not make sense when read on its own, for example 'click here'
- some documents do not have alt attributes
The Commissioner regularly checks for any recent broken links on its web pages and repairs them as soon as they are identified.
Broken links in documents published before September 2018 will not be fixed unless this is essential in order for users to access a service.
When new content is published, the Commissioner will ensure that the links meet accessibility standards. The Commissioner has prioritised the review and resolution of accessibility issues on the pages with the highest number of users for the most essential services.
Content which is beyond the scope of the accessibility regulations
The Commissioner does not intend to fix the following, as they are exempt in the regulations.
Older documents
Most older PDFs, Excel files and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so that they are accessible to a screen reader. The accessibility regulations do not require the repair of PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 unless they are essential to service delivery.
The Commissioner therefore does not intend to resolve the following information if it was published before 23 September 2018:
- missing alt attributes
- tables that are not accessible documents, such as PDFs, Excel and Word files that do not meet accessibility standards
Disproportionate burden
The Commissioner's website contains hundreds of pages and historical documents. Some of them may be exempt from the regulations. It would take a considerable amount of time and money to fully review and address these, so the Commissioner has assessed that this would be a disproportionate burden at this stage.
What is being done to improve accessibility?
The Commissioner is seeking to improve the accessibility of the website.
These are some of the areas we will be focusing on over the next 12 months to make the website more accessible.
- Revisiting the main pages of the website to ensure that alt attributes are included on pages
- Review the images and ensure that an audio description is included
- Ensuring that any pages, images, and documents uploaded from now on contain the text needed to make them accessible
The list of things that have been done will be updated as the work to make the website more accessible and meet the accessibility regulations is undertaken.
Preparing this accessibility statement
This statement was prepared in July 2021.