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Sunderland City Council

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Sunderland City Council
Civic Centre
Burdon Road
Sunderland
SR2 7DN

Tel. (0191) 520 5555
Calls may be recorded for quality and training purposes

Accessibility on the Sunderland City Council Website
 
RNIB Logo Level A conformance icon, W3C-WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 Valid HTML 4.01! http://bobby.watchfire.com

The current external link Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) requires that goods and services are offered on equal terms to people with disabilities.

Sunderland City Council is committed to providing its online services to all sections of the public. We have had considerable help from two individuals who both have visual impairments who assist us making the site more accessible.  With this in mind, our website was being designed to follow the accessibility guidelines issued by the external link World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the external link Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) - see our Accessibility links page.

The following is a list of some of the actions we have taken in order to improve accessibility of the Sunderland Council website:

symbol Validated the website against the standards and recommendations of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).  This initiative is a programme lead by The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
symbol Ensure that all HTML documents conform to W3C HTML and XHTML Recommendations and other HTML standards.
symbol Ensure that the website is Bobby Compliant.  Bobby is a comprehensive web accessibility software tool designed to help expose and repair barriers to accessibility and encourage compliance with existing accessibility guidelines.
symbol Ensure the every image on the site uses alternative text to describe the content of the picture. This is useful for text-based browsers and/or for users with visual impairments.
symbol Provide a link to the Adobe Acrobat Access reader for PDF Adobe Acrobat files from every page which contains such a document.
symbol Increase the contrast between background and text for readability purposes wherever possible.
symbol Allow the individual to change text colours for individual sessions and to remember these settings for subsequent visits.
symbol Allow the individual to change background colours for individual sessions and to remember these settings for subsequent visits.
symbol Ensure that all fields in online forms can be navigated with pressing 'Tab' in a keyboard. This is particularly meaningful to users that cannot use a pointer device such as the mouse, whether this is for mobility reasons or for visual impairments.
symbol Provided free-to-use speech software Help-Read(tm)
symbol Developed meaningful access keys  to allow users with limited physical capabilities to navigate more easily
symbol Regularly consult with citizens with visual impairments on the use of the site, and make improvements to the site based upon the problems they experience or recommendations they make.

If you come across pages which are not disability-friendly please let us know by emailing accessibility@sunderland.gov.uk
last updated 18/06/08