Skip to site content Skip to main menu

Accessibility statement for the Police Scotland website

This accessibility statement is for the Police Scotland website.

The Police Scotland website was dip-sample audited as per the UK Government guidelines.

This audit identified a number of areas where Police Scotland could strive for greater accessibility and compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard.

 

How accessible this website is

We want the website to be as accessible as possible. We will ensure that:

Correct HTML mark-up is used for web pages.

We will ensure elements such as lists, tables, links and images follow the WCAG AA standard.

The site pages are web standards compliant and most can be:

  • Zoomed in on
  • The user can move about the page and interact with keyboard only
  • Have more than one form of navigation
  • Use meaningful link titles and image alt tags.
  • Videos don’t auto play and have correct subtitles
  • Form fields behave as expected and can be used without a mouse.

We recognise from the audit that a full review is required. This will identify areas that fall below the AA standard. The audit identified:

  • That PDFs are likely to contain incorrect document mark up/structure
  • PDF diagrams are likely to not be suitable for assistive technology
  • Interactive elements that the user cannot control (pause, play, advance function)
  • Colour contrast on some text areas
  • Overly complicated writing style/text on pages.

Police Scotland is working to fix these issues.

 

Feedback and contact information

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

email: CorpCommunications@scotland.pnn.police.uk 

 

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, please us the contact details above.

 

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). For full details please visit https://www.equalityadvisoryservice.com/.

 

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

The Police Service of Scotland is committed to making its website accessible. This is in line 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. This is due to ‘the non-compliances’ listed below.

 

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-accessible content

We know that the following are in an inaccessible format and we plan to fix this by the following dates:

  • Local Policing plans – will be resolved when new accessible plans are published on 1 April 2023
  • Privacy Notices – will be resolved when new HTML pages replace these on Monday 23 January
  • Some of our Strategic plans – will be resolved by publishing an accessible version alongside the PDF by Monday 30 January
  • FOI disclosure log responses – Accessible versions of responses are being published from 1 January 2023. By 31 December 2023 all inaccessible versions of the responses will be removed.

 

Update 12 December 2022

There was an accessibility audit in September 2022. The Police Scotland website, and related websites (https://policescotland-spacareers.tal.net/  and https://consult.scotland.police.uk/) were tested for compliance.

This test was conducted by the Government Digital Service on behalf of the Minister of the Cabinet Office as part of their role to monitor the accessibility of public sector websites and mobile applications in the United Kingdom.

The accessibility issues identified in the report are listed below.

Report issues

Issue 0.1 Main site statement

An accessibility statement was found for the main site but:

  • the Enforcement Procedure text for the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) needs to link to their website: https://www.equalityadvisoryservice.com/ 
  • accessibility issues were found during the test that were not included in the statement
  • we require more information covering the disproportionate burden claim
  • your statement should be easy to find on the homepage of the website or made available on every web page, for example in a static header or footer, as per the legal requirement

Issue 0.2 Citizen Space statement

An accessibility statement was found for the Citizen Space (Engagement Hub) but:

  • it is missing a scope statement (‘This accessibility statement applies to...’)
  • the ‘Enforcement procedure’ section is missing
  • the following sentence is legally required and must be included in full: [Name of organisation] is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.’
  • the ‘Compliance status’ section is missing
  • the ‘Non-accessible content’ sections are missing
  • accessibility issues were found during the test that were not included in the statement
  • the statement has no preparation or review date

Issue 1 – Police Scotland logo does not have descriptive alternative text

On main site pages, such as the Home and Contact Us pages, the Police Scotland logo has alternative text of "logo image". However, it should provide the same information that is presented visually (including the text 'Police Scotland' as a minimum).

Issue 2 – PDF navigation links are not tagged

In the 'Annual Police Plan 2022/23 PDF', the Back, Contents and Next links at the bottom of each page are not tagged, and therefore might not be properly detected when using assistive technology.

Issue 3 – PDF tags are not in a logical reading order

In the 'Annual Police Plan 2022/23 PDF', the order of the tags in the document does not reflect the reading order.

Issue 4 – Contact Us form fields do not have autocomplete attributes

On the Contact Us form, some fields can support autocomplete but do not have an autocomplete attribute.

Issue 5 – Cookie banner link is only distinguishable using colour

The same issue also occurs for the 'change your cookie settings' link after accepting cookies.

Issue 6 – Acrobat link is only distinguishable using colour

On the Your Community page, the link to Adobe Acrobat Reader is not underlined by default, and relies only on colour to identify it as a link compared to its surrounding text.

Issue 7 – Your Community link is only distinguishable using colour

On the Police Station Opening Hours page, the link to Your Community (at the end of the page) is both underlined and surrounded by underlined text.

Issue 8 – Accept Cookies button has low contrast

Upon first accessing the site, for example on the Home page, a cookie banner is shown. The 'Accept all cookies' button text has low contrast: green #28a745 on white #ffffff with contrast ratio 3.1:1.

Issue 9 – Contact form placeholder text has low contrast

On the Contact Us form,  placeholder text has low contrast: grey text #999999 on white #ffffff with contrast ratio 2.8:1:

Issue 10 – Contact form error text has low contrast

On the Contact Us form, if it is submitted without filling in any information, some error text has low contrast: red text #ff0000 on white #ffffff with contrast ratio 4.0:1:

Issue 11 – Recruitment category links have low contrast

On the main Recruitment page, the links to the 4 recruitment categories (such as Police Officer and Police Staff) contain some text with low contrast against its background.

Issue 12 – Links on Vacancies page have low contrast

On the Current Vacancies page, all blue links in the main body of the page have insufficient contrast: blue text #0085ca on white #ffffff with contrast ratio 4:1.

Issue 13 – Engagement Hub menu has low contrast when focussed

On the Engagement Hub page and its accessibility statement, when viewed at 200% zoom, the navigation links collapse into a single expandable menu. However, when this menu receives keyboard focus, it has low contrast.

Issue 14 – Engagement Hub placeholder text has low contrast

On the Engagement Hub page and its accessibility statement, the placeholder text in the Search box has low contrast: white text #ffffff on light grey #999999 with contrast 2.8:1.

Issue 15 – PDF has several contrast issues

In the 'Annual Police Plan 2022/23 PDF', there are several contrast issues throughout the document.

Issue 16 – Recruitment email addresses extend beyond screen width

On the main Recruitment page, when viewed at 400% zoom or on a small screen (320 x 256 pixels) the email addresses for 'Police officer recruitment', 'Special constable recruitment' and 'Positive action recruitment' expand beyond the edge of the screen and cannot be fully read without scrolling horizontally.

Issue 17 – Text on vacancies page does not reflow

On the Current Vacancies page, when viewed at 400% zoom or on a small screen, the text 'Stay up to date with the latest vacancies by registering for new job notifications' after the vacancies does not reflow, and horizontal scrolling is required to view it.

Issue 18 – Accessibility statement email addresses extend beyond screen width

On the main site’s accessibility statement page, when viewed at 400% zoom or on a small screen (320 x 256 pixels) both the email address under 'Feedback and Contact Information' and the URLs in the Non-compliance & Update sections expand beyond the edge of the screen and cannot be fully read without scrolling horizontally.

Issue 19 – Menu text cannot be read when spaced out

On main site pages, such as the Home and Contact Us pages, when text spacing is increased to the levels specified in this criterion, the Contact Us link in the menu is mainly pushed past the right-hand side of the screen, meaning it cannot be read.

Issue 20 – Skip link does not work on some pages

On some pages, the 'Skip to site content' link (visible at the start of the keyboard tab order) does not work.

Issue 21 – Search results page title is not descriptive

On the search results page, regardless of the search query, the page's title is ‘ - Police Scotland’. The page title needs to describe the topic or purpose of the page.

Issue 22 – Disclosure Log 2022 page title is not descriptive

On the Disclosure Log 2022 page, the title of the page is simply '2022 - Police Scotland'. This does not sufficiently describe the topic or purpose of the page.

Issue 23 – Hamburger menu focus state is hard to see

On main site pages, such as the Home and Contact Us pages, when viewed at 200% zoom, the hamburger menu has visible keyboard focus. However, it is very hard to see.

Issue 24 – Search button has no visible label

Throughout the site, the search button at the top of the screen does not have a visible label.

Issue 25 – Non-unique IDs on some pages

On the some pages, there are multiple navigational <div> elements with an ID of 'sub-navigation-children-side-section'. IDs across each page need to be unique.

Issue 26 – Most pages have invisible social media links

On main site pages, such as the Home and Contact Us pages, there are some visually hidden social media links to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

Issue 27 – Search navigation links have no label

On the Search results page, the links at the bottom of the page used to navigate between search results pages do not have any text (either visible, or readable using assistive technology) to identify their purpose.

Issue 28 – Engagement Hub filters use aria-expanded incorrectly

On the Engagement Hub page, the filters are contained within a <div> element with ID 'global-navbar-collapse'. This element has an aria-expanded attribute. However, aria-expanded attributes are not allowed on <div> elements with no role.

Issue 29 – Engagement Hub video frame has no accessible name

On the Engagement Hub page, the <iframe> element containing the video 'Public Confidence - Public Engagement (BSL)' does not have an accessible name.

Issue 30 – Vacancies filters use aria-expanded incorrectly

On the Current Vacancies page, the filters are contained within a <div> element with ID 'collapsible-filters'. This element has an aria-expanded attribute. However, aria-expanded attributes are not allowed on <div> elements with no role.

Other issues

The following are not failures against Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and are not mandatory to fix, however they could still cause issues for some users accessing the site.

Issue 31 – Back keyboard shortcut is disabled

Throughout the site, the standard keyboard shortcut to move back a page (Alt + back arrow in Chrome on Windows). This makes it difficult to navigate back a page using only the keyboard.

Issue 32 – Contact form does not accept long email addresses

On the Contact Us form, the 'Contact email address' field does not accept long email addresses such as accessibility-monitoring@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk.

Fixes

The follow issues have already been fixed: 0.1, 0.2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, and 32.

Recruitment site issues 12, 17 and 30 will be fixed on 25 January 2023.

Consultation site issue 28 is currently in workflow for completion before the end of February 2023.

 

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

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDFs and Word 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 Word documents.

We will plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

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, statistical data.

We are required to publish documents created by other organisations.

 

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

  • We are reviewing HTML page mark up to ensure compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard
  • We are reviewing our use of language to make content easily understandable
  • We will work with our development team to look at implementing functional/template changes as required
  • We will work with departments that produce PDFs/Word documents to ensure compliance
  • We are producing an accessibility roadmap to outline how we will strive for compliance.
  • We are actively working to fix the issues identified in the Government Digital Service report

 

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 23/09/2020. It was last reviewed on 12/12/2022, updated on 09/04/2021,  31/03/2022, 26/10/2022 and 12/12/2022.

This website was tested on 14/09/2020. The test was carried out by Police Scotland.

We decided on a sample of pages to test as follows, as they covered the types of pages and content widely found across the website:

  • Home page
  • What’s Happening landing page
  • News landing page
  • News article
  • Campaign page
  • Keep Safe landing page
  • Keep Safe advice page
  • Recruitment job advert
  • Access to Information page
  • About Us landing page
  • About Us > Management Information Reports page
  • About Us > Exec structure
  • Contact Us landing page
  • Contact Us form
  • Domestic Abuse Disclosure form
  • Cookie setting page
  • Local Policing landing page
  • Local Policing > Divisional page
  • Local Policing > Command Area page.

The website was tested again by the Government Digital Service in September 2023. The following pages and resources were tested:

featured

Recruitment Main 1140
Recruitment

Become a police officer and help keep Scotland safe.

Complaints Banner 217X145 6697 21 Ca
Complaints

How to make a complaint to Police Scotland, how they are investigated and more.

Accessibility Statement2
Accessibility Statement

Policing Scotland has been working to make its websites more accessible - read our accessibility statement.

Your Police Survey 22-23
Your Police

Help shape policing in your local area.

Ask the Police Scotland
Ask the Police

The official police resource for Scotland. Find advice & support for any situation you might be facing.

more features