This is the official website of Sparsholt Parish Council Winchester, Hampshire.

Accessibility Statement

This accessibility statement applies to sparsholtparish.org. This website is run by Sparsholt Parish Council. The Parish Council 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)

To assist with website accessibility, Sparsholt Parish Council has installed the UserWay Accessibility Widget.

UserWay Accessibility Widget

The UserWay Accessibility Widget is located at the top left of the website and looks like this accessibility widget

This widget offers a broad selection of functions that users can mix and match to meet their individual accessibility needs. Each of the functions can be turned on or off or set at an interim value. Furthermore, settings for each user are automatically saved (via a cookie) for future site visits. The functions include, but are not limited to:

  • Keyboard Navigation: Navigate most of the website using just a keyboard.
  • Read Page: Listen to most of the website.
  • Contrast: Change contrast levels. Choose from the following: normal contrast, invert colours, dark contrast, light contrast and desaturate.
  • Highlight Links
  • Bigger Text: Choose from four increasing font sizes without the text spilling off the screen.
  • Text Spacing: Modify line spacing for improved readability for dyslexic and visually impaired users.
  • Stop Animations
  • Legible Fonts
  • Reading Guide: Converts the cursor into a high contrast horizontal reading guide. Focuses and guides the eyes to reduce eye strain for users who are visually impaired, dyslexic and users with Presbyopia.
  • Tooltips: Shows alternative text and aria labels for on-screen elements with a simple mouse hover. Tooltips are prominent, high contrast and easy to read for low vision users with accessibility needs.
  • 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

    The Parish Council know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

    • most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software

    Feedback and contact information

    What to do if you cannot access parts of this website

    If you need information on this website in a different format:

    • email clerk@sparsholtparish.org
    • call 01962 776909

    We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 15 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 Parish Clerk, Nicky Breen via email at clerk@sparsholtparish.org
    Call the Parish Clerk, Nicky Breen on 01962 776909

    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 the Parish Council respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

    Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

    Find out how to contact us: http://www.sparsholtparish.org/index.php?&pg=Councillor_Contact

    Technical information about this website’s accessibility

    Sparsholt Parish Council 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:

    • older PDF files such as Meeting Minutes, Agendas, Policies etc
    • scanned documents such as Conclusion of Audit or documents that may include a signature.
    • you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader
    • images may not have useful alt text or be marked-up as decorative
    • some iFrames are missing a title and description
    • some documents have multiple static elements with the same id attribute
    • images may not be free from text
    • there is no way to skip the repeated content in the page header (for example, a ‘skip to main content’ option)
    • it is not always possible to change the device orientation from horizontal to vertical without making it more difficult to view the content
    • it is not possible for users to change text size without some of the content overlapping
    • links used by administrators are hidden for operational reasons
    • sometimes the contrast is insufficient but can be altered using the accessibility widget

    Disproportionate Burden

    Nothing is cited as being a disproportionate burden.

    Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations.

    PDFs and other documents

    Many of our older PDFs and Word documents do not meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. This does not meet:

    • WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2 (name, role value)
    • WCAG 2.0 success criterion 2.4.5 Multiple Ways
    • WCAG 2.0 success criterion 2.4.8 Location

    The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix documents such as agendas, minutes and financial documents prior to 2018.

    The Council are required, by law, to upload a number of documents that have been approved and signed (eg councillors declarations of interests and the end of year statements), this is done by scanning the document and uploading as a PDF filetype. The very nature of a scanned document is not accessible and often OCR conversion of the document is not perfect. This will be reviewed, likely in 2025 to see if technology or regulations have changed.

    Any new PDFs or Word documents the Council publish will aim to meet accessibility standards, unless these documents are in a format which cannot be made accessible easily. If you are unable to access any document on this website due to its format, please contact the Clerk via the methods mentioned above.

    What we’re doing to improve accessibility

    The Parish Council will be running regular accessibility checks and ensure that new content added to the website meets accessibility requirements where possible. The clerk is undertaking Accessibility training to make sure we prepare accessible documents where possible. We will seek to remedy any issues reported to us as quicky as reasonably possible.

    Preparation of this accessibility statement

    This statement was published on 3rd May 2021.

    This website was last tested on 3rd May 2021. The test was carried out via Sparsholt Parish Council (self-evaluation) on representative pages following the Government accessibility checklist and using the Wave Accessibility Evaluation Tool in a Chrome web browser on a Macbook.

    The Parish Council focused on the most frequently used website pages to test, including the pages listed on the main menu.