1. great.gov.uk
  2. Accessibility statement
Accessibility statement for great.gov.uk

This website is run by the Department for International Trade (DIT). It allows UK and international businesses to access services which make trade and investment to and from the UK easier.

DIT regularly tests its online services to ensure they meet accessibility requirements. Our internal development teams test constantly and we had the whole website tested by external audit agencies. We want our whole website to comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA as a minimum.

We want all businesses and individuals to be able to use this website. This means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and font sizes
  • zoom up to 500% 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)

The site will:

  • respond to different screen sizes or zoom levels
  • use words that are clear and simple to understand throughout the website
  • ensure all images have accessible descriptions where necessary

AbilityNet has tips on how to make your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We are constantly improving the content and performance of our website to make sure it can best support UK and international businesses. Recent testing showed that small parts of the website are not fully accessible.

For example, the ‘Events’ section of our site has several inaccessible elements which may be difficult for those using a screen reader.

We are actively working to fix these issues during regular service updates.

What to do if you cannot access parts of this website

If you need information on this website in a different format, email help@digital.trade.gov.uk.

If you have a problem with accessing any of the events on great.gov.uk you can contact us at eventsupport@trade.gov.uk. We’ll get back to you within 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 are not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, please tell us by using the reporting links at the bottom of each page.

Enforcement procedure

In England, Wales and Scotland, 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).

In Northern Ireland, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland 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 Commission for Northern Ireland.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

DIT 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 compliance with the accessibility regulations

Technology

The vast majority of great.gov.uk is compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA but there are individual elements of the site which may be difficult to use for people using assistive technology.

For example, form elements do not currently allow the use of an autocomplete feature.

This issue does not stop users from accessing any service on great.gov.uk. However, to make our forms work better with assistive technologies, we will be working on fixing this issue by December 2020.

Images, video and audio

We have ensured that:

  • all images have text alternatives where necessary
  • specialist voice control software works effectively throughout the site
  • the vast majority of our multimedia content is perceivable and operable to all users

Other accessibility issues

Events service

Our events service is built and hosted through a third party provider.

There are a number of issues with the events service including:

  • there is no indication for blind users, or users that rely on audio feedback, that results are populating on the page when typing into the ‘Keyword’ form element
  • the structure of the headings on the page is illogical
  • the menu button on mobile is unlabelled so it is unclear what the button relates to
  • there is no ‘skip to content’ link present on some of the pages
  • the language attribute used has an invalid value – ‘eng’ is not a recognised language, and may cause assistive technology to render the content incorrectly
  • a technical issue with some lists may cause content to not render correctly on versions of screen reader software
  • some of our events pages contain non-descriptive ambiguous links such as ‘find out more’
  • Images lack alt text
  • the tab index on some of our events pages is used incorrectly causing some screen reader users to briefly lose focus when tabbing through interactive elements

We are working with our supplier to create new accessible templates for our events service. Any new event published from November 2020 will be published using accessible templates.

If you have a problem with accessing any of the events on great.gov.uk you can contact us at eventsupport@trade.gov.uk.

How we tested this website

This website was last audited externally on 16 March 2020. The test was carried out by The Digital Accessibility Centre.

The website is continuously tested using automated software and manually by the development team.

We manually test pages with users and technical development teams before they are made publicly available.

The last external audit looked at our:

  • registration and account pages
  • market guides
  • selling online overseas
  • international homepage and the following parts of international:
    • about the UK
    • expand to the UK
    • invest capital in the UK
    • buy from the UK
    • about us

All the defects which were identified and don’t conform to Standard A and AA of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1WCAG 2.01 were fixed.

The website’s content was audited internally in August 2020, and all problems were resolved. The site’s content team will ensure accessibility regulations are met for all new published content.

This statement was prepared on 3 September 2019. It was last updated on 22 September 2020.

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