Accessibility statement

What we promise

We build this site so that it can be used with a keyboard, with a screen reader, with magnification and with low vision. The benchmark is WCAG 2.1 level AA: the same standard referenced by the ADA, Section 508 and the Department of Justice rule for the websites of public bodies.

This statement is about the site itself. Accessibility as a service we also do for clients — that is a separate line of work, and we hold ourselves to the same requirements as their sites.

What is already done

Keyboard. Any page can be walked with Tab, every active element shows focus, and the first link on the page is "Skip to content". You will not get stuck inside a dialog: it closes with Esc and returns focus to where it came from.

Screen reader. Every page names the language of the document, every image has a text description, headings run in order without skipping levels, and form fields have labels. An error appears next to its own field and takes focus there, rather than showing up as one line at the bottom.

Vision. Text and background hold a contrast ratio of 4.5 : 1, the type grows with the browser's own settings and survives magnification to 200 percent without losing text, and no meaning is carried by colour alone.

Motion. Animations in the first screen and transitions are muted when the system has "reduce motion" switched on. There is nothing on the site that flashes, moves by itself or counts down.

How we test it

An automated accessibility check runs over every page of the release — with the same tools we use on clients' sites. What it finds is fixed before publishing, not after a letter from a lawyer.

Automation catches less than half, so we walk the key pages by hand: with a keyboard, a screen reader and magnification. What we find is written down and fixed in turn — starting with what stops you getting the job done: reaching the price, filling in the form, sending the request.

If something does not work

Write to us at the email address in the footer of this page. Give the page address, what you were trying to do, what you were using — browser, screen reader, magnification — and what went wrong. That is enough for us to reproduce it.

We will acknowledge your message, say what we found and name a date for the fix. If the fix takes time, we will offer another way to do the same thing — by email or by conversation — so that you are not left waiting.

What this statement does not cover

Pages and files that sit on other people's sites — a document at a supplier, say, or a form from a third-party service. We answer for what we publish ourselves, and we ask the same of suppliers; where the choice is ours, we choose the accessible option.

Material published before the last revision of this statement is put in order as we come back to it. If you need a particular document in an accessible form, write to us and we will do it out of turn.

The standard we measure ourselves against

WCAG 2.1 level AA, with full conformance as the goal. Section 508 and the ADA reference the same standard, so we do not keep a separate set of rules for public buyers — the rules are one and the same.

If procurement needs a conformance report on our own pages, write to us: we will send the current revision. The date this statement was last changed sits under the heading.