Accessibility statement

This accessibility statement applies to the Public Appointments Commissioner website.

This website is run by the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments. 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.

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 of our PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
• some tables (notably the Exceptional Appointments) are not presented with the correct HTML markup
• although complaints can also be made via email and telephone the complaints form exists only as a Word document
• old videos had their subtitles hardcoded into the video file so we are unable to easily extract them and they have not been converted into transcripts

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 publicappointments@csc.gov.uk.

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 2 working days.

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 the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments by emailing publicappointments@csc.gov.uk.

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

The Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments 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, 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 PDFs aren’t accessible to screen reader software. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value). Those which don’t currently have full text alternatives on this website will do by September 2021.
• The complaints form exists only as a Word document. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value). This form will have full text alternative on this website by September 2021.
• Old videos had their subtitles hardcoded into the video file and we are unable to easily extract them for transcripts. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2 (captions (prerecorded)). All new videos we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 18 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 7 May 2021.

This website was last tested on 7 May 2021. The test was carried out by the Government Communication Service.

The approach we took was to test every non-standard page (namely the homepage, the section homepages and all pages containing forms or tables) and then a sample of 2 further pages from each section.