Accessibility statement for www.police.uk

This accessibility statement applies to www.police.uk.

This website is run by the Single Online Home. 

We want everyone to be able to use this website. You might have a better experience if you change the settings on your computer to suit your needs. The site has been built so that 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 or 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 text as simple as possible to understand. 

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use

Known problems with this site’s accessibility

We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible.

  • Some parts of the forms(such as checkboxes, radio controls, list boxes and combination boxes) for reporting crimes, traffic incidents and anti-social behaviour may be difficult to use with keyboard navigation, screen readers such as JAWS and voice command software such as Dragon.
  • The escape key always take you away from the website. This is to give people a quick way to stop someone else seeing that they are on the police website. However, this means you cannot use the escape key to cancel out of any feedback pop-up windows on the site without losing any information you have entered and being taken away from the website.
  • Some content on our website is not available unless JavaScript is enabled, for example forms and maps.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

If you can't access something you need on this site, please tell us about it and we will get you what you need in another way:

Online using our accessibility form.

By email: soh-accessibility@met.police.uk

To help us understand the problem as quickly as we can, please tell us:

  • the web address or title of the page where you found the problem
  • what the problem is
  • what computer and software you use

This is only for telling us about accessibility problems. 

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).

If you are in Northern Ireland and are not happy with how we respond to your complaint you can contact the Equalities Commission for Northern Ireland who are responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’) in Northern Ireland.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Police UK 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 below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non compliance with the accessibility regulations

Forms

  • dropdown menus and checkboxes in our forms are difficult to operate with a keyboard. This doesn’t meet success criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A).
  • When using the enter key to operate dropdown menus in our forms, required field validation messages will display before you submit your data. This doesn’t meet success criterion 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A).
  • Form validation and error messages are not read out by some screen readers. This doesn't meet success criterion 3.3.1 Error Identification (Level A).
  • Some parts of our forms (such as checkboxes, radio controls, list boxes and combination boxes) are difficult or impossible to use with screen readers such as JAWS and voice command software such as Dragon. This doesn’t meet success criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A).

We are investigating fixing the issues and timelines.

Keyboard operation

Using the Escape key to cancel out of the ‘Is there something wrong with this page?’ pop-up dialogues windows will result in a redirect away from the website and form data will be lost. For security and privacy reasons pressing the escape key on any page triggers the 'Leave this site' link shortcut and causes a redirection away from this website. This is in place to give vulnerable users the option to leave the site as quickly as possible. This doesn’t meet success criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A).

How we tested this website

This website was last tested, using:

  • automated testing – the quickest way to catch 20% to 50% of potential issues
  • manual testing – using assistive technology tools to test the website with a social focus on areas with known problems
  • user testing – asking users with accessibility needs to test the website, and learning from their feedback

We continually monitor and test the accessibility of our site and have made fixing and improving the accessibility of the site part of our daily work.

Preparation of this accessibility Statement

This statement was prepared on 20 September 2019. It was last reviewed on 21 September 2020.

The Single Online Home was last tested in May 2019. The test was carried out by an external audit

We tested the service based on a user's ability to complete key journeys. All parts of the chosen journeys were tested, including documents. Journeys were chosen on a number of factors including usage statistics, risk assessments and subject matter.