This website is run by Citizens Advice. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. You should be able to:

• easily understand our content
• view images and multimedia - including videos, animations and audio
• read text with good colour contrast
• skip to main content using a keyboard

How accessible this website is

We know parts of this website aren’t fully accessible, for example:

• some pages have poor colour contrast
• some labels and error messages aren’t clear what they relate to
• some buttons aren’t correctly identified
• some pages and forms don’t work well when zoomed in
• some pages and forms can’t be accessed or navigated with a keyboard
• some links don’t have useful text or you can only tell they’re links because of what colour they are
• navigation isn’t consistent

Feedback and contact information

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).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We provide a textphone service for people who can’t hear or speak on the phone. You can find out more about textphone on the Relay UK website.

You can check if we can arrange a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter before your visit.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Citizens Advice 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 in this section is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Colour

We fail guideline ‘1.4 Distinguishable’ of the WCAG 2.1 AA standard because:

• this website doesn’t meet the contrast requirement of 3:1 against a white background for interactive elements or form controls
• some pages use colour to show what they mean

We’re redesigning our website and will be utilizing these in the new design

Forms

We fail guidelines ‘1.3 Adaptable’, ‘2.1 Keyboard accessible’, ‘2.4 Navigable’ and ‘3.3 Input assistance’ of the WCAG 2.1 AA standards because:

• many of the forms can’t be used with just a keyboard or keyboard interface
• some form fields are missing labels which can make it difficult to tell which field to complete
• dynamic content isn’t properly marked up so assistive technology users won’t know the content has changed
• error messages don’t tell people using assistive technology if there’s an error

In 2022, we’ll start to review how all forms and interactive elements are implemented.

We’re redesigning our website and will start to use these designs in early 2022

Navigation

We fail guideline ‘1.4 Distinguishable’ of the WCAG 2.1 AA standards because:

• the navigation bar text reflows when zooming in on text on old pages, but the blue bar doesn’t get bigger and makes the text unreadable
• The menu doesn't adapt to being seen on different screen sizes

We’ll use new navigation by mid 2022

Keyboard access

We fail guidelines ‘2.1 Keyboard accessible’ and ‘2.4 Navigable’ of the WCAG 2.1 AA standards because:

• several of the tools can’t be accessed or navigated with the keyboard
• some pages have buttons with incorrect markup that affects how they work with assistive technology

We’ll make the navigation and buttons accessible by mid 2022

1. Accessibility checks for all development releases

We’ll check all new content, designs and development meets accessibility standards.

2. Regular quality assurance (QA) testing with an accessibility focus

As we design, build and update the site, we will regularly do audits and QA testing to make sure we don’t add new barriers.

3. Including disabled people and people with long term health conditions in every round of research

During the early stages of development, we’ll make sure people with access needs are included in the research.

We’ll run usability testing with advisers and volunteers who work for Citizens Advice and we’ll use our Disability Network Group to recruit participants.

When we recruit external participants for usability testing, we’ll make sure people with access needs are included in this.