Accessibility statement

This website is run by Kirklees Council. 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 wording 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 aren’t fully accessible:

Most PDF documents
Maps sometimes have a limit to how far you can magnify them
Open data files in CSV and XLSX formats

What to do if you can't access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format such as accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, contact:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 5 working days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page, or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact:

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

Technical information about this website's accessibility

Kirklees Council is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

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

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

Issues with technology

Some of our PDF and RTF documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services, and forms published as RTF documents. We are creating a register of PDF and RTF documents which are essential for service delivery and will work through these to create web pages and online forms where appropriate. This work will be completed by 23 September 2020.

Issues with interactive tools and transactions

Some of our forms don’t have descriptive labels for form fields. Some of our map-based services don’t have an accessible alternative.

Disproportionate burden

Some annually-updated PDF documents published on the site are a disproportionate burden to make accessible. These include school admissions, council tax and benefits documents. These will be made accessible upon publication of the 2020 version of the document. Licensing documents and documents related to planning applications fail on many criteria.

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

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not have been created so they’re accessible to a screen reader.

We understand that the regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

How we tested this website

This website was last tested on 14 November 2022. The test was carried out by Kirklees Council. We used this approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test:

We tested a subset of web pages using an automated testing tool. The results were recorded and accessibility issues that were found were fixed or are being fixed.