CHESHIRE West and Chester Council has joined forces with a leading disability charity to improve its web services to disabled people.
The council has engaged the Shaw Trust to carry out a full accessibility audit of www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk as well as some of the council’s micro websites.
The Shaw Trust’s accessibility experts will spend two weeks testing the Council’s website - which currently has around 5,000 pages and thousands more documents - to ensure it is accessible to people with a range of disabilities, including:
Blindness or visual impairment
Deafness or hearing impaired
Colour blindness
Cognitive impairment
Mobility impairment, especially difficulty using a computer mouse
They will then provide a comprehensive report to the council’s web team listing issues found and how to fix them.
Once any problems are fixed, the website will be accredited by the Shaw Trust.
Accreditation will help the Council meet its obligations to disabled people under the Equality Act, as well as underline the Council’s wider commitment to equality and diversity.
“We already go to great lengths to ensure our site is accessible to disabled people, including checking every page published meets the latest guidelines,” said Cheshire West and Chester’s Online Services Manager, Phil Orchard.
“But there’s always room for improvement and we look forward to working with the Shaw Trust to make our web services as good as possible for all our users.”
Councillor Razia Daniels, Champion of Equality and Diversity, said: “It is of course essential that our site is accessible to disabled people, and we are doing everything we can to make sure that this is the case.
“Accreditation from Shaw Trust will show just how hard we work towards our sites accessibility whilst allowing us to meet our obligations under the Equality Act.”
