This accessibility statement applies to the JNCC website, which includes:
- our main website platform, available at https://jncc.gov.uk/
- our specialist microsites, available at
- Resource Hub: https://hub.jncc.gov.uk
- Special Areas of Conservation (SAC): https://sac.jncc.gov.uk
- Marine Habitat Classification: https://mhc.jncc.gov.uk
We are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability. We are actively working to increase the accessibility and usability of our website, which has been built to work in recent versions of the most widely used browsers and should be compatible with recent versions of assistive software.
This website is run by JNCC (Joint Nature Conservation Committee). 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 500% without the text spilling off the screen and without content being truncated or overlapping
- navigate most of the content 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 text as simple as possible to understand, although some specialist scientific language is unavoidable (e.g. when describing species and habitats).
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:
- interactive maps and tools, such as the Marine Protected Areas mapper and the Chile Ecosystem Service Mapper, are unlikely to perform well in assistive software.
- Some of our images do not have appropriate descriptions.
- Some of our content headings have not been marked up correctly.
- Some tables may not have column and/or row headings.
- Some content within pages and documents has poor colour contrast.
- Many documents are in PDF format and are not fully accessible.
- Many of our videos are embedded from YouTube and may feature inadequate or incorrect captions generated by YouTube. In some cases the captions are missing entirely.
- Our video content does not have audio description.
- The MPA Mapper does not display at a zoom of 150% or higher.
- At zoom levels of 250% or above, the video on the Oceans & Climate change page is truncated.
- Some visual headings are not marked up correctly for screen readers.
- Some navigation dropdown lists, tabs, horizontal sliders, buttons, and links cannot be operated using a keyboard.
- Some text boxes do not have a text label to describe their purpose.
- Some dropdown lists and text that are acting as visual cues for link or buttons are not fully accessible to screen reader software.
- Some links and buttons do not have a focus indicator, which makes keyboard navigation difficult.
- The VInES application can be displayed in different languages but this is not conveyed to screen readers so they mispronounce the text.
- In our contact form and the VInES application assistive technologies are not alerted when there is an error.
We are working to resolve these issues, and to identify any other outstanding issues. We will update the statement when issues are fixed or with information on when we expect them to be fixed.
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:
- Contact us through the website
- call +44 (0)1733 562626
We’ll consider your request and get back to you within five business 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 the requirements of the accessibility regulations, please use our contact form to get in touch. Your comments will be sent to our Web Team to investigate.
Enforcement procedure
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).
Technical information about this website’s accessibility
JNCC 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
Some parts of our website may not work for everyone. Below are known issues that we either need to fix, cannot fix, or do not need to fix right now.
If you find an issue that we have missed please contact us.
The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.
Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations
- We display our video content through YouTube, and captions can be enabled in the YouTube player. At the moment many of our videos are captioned or transcribed automatically, so there might be some errors. Also, some captions are missing. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.2).
- Some videos do not have an alternative text version and do not provide sufficient description of the important visual content in the audio track. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.2.3).
- Some visual headings are not marked up correctly. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1).
- Some tables may not have column and/or row headings. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1).
- The MPA mapper page contains treeview navigation that is not marked up correctly. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1).
- Some navigation dropdown lists, tabs, horizontal sliders, buttons, and links cannot be operated using a keyboard. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.1.1).
- Some text boxes do not have a text label to describe their purpose. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.3.2).
- There are numerous HTML5 validation errors (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.1).
- Some custom links and buttons do not have a programmatic role, so they are not fully accessible to screen reader software. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.2).
- Some text, headings, links, buttons, map content, and video content are difficult to read as they do not have sufficient colour contrast. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 (Contrast) and 1.4.11 (Non-text Contrast).
- The MPA Mapper does not display at a zoom of 150% or higher. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.10).
- At zoom levels of 250% or above, the video on the Oceans & Climate change page is truncated. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.10).
- Some links and buttons do not have a focus indicator (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 2.4.7).
- The VInES application can be displayed in different languages but this is not conveyed programmatically (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 3.1.2).
- In our contact form and the VInES application assistive technologies are not alerted when there is an error. (WCAG 2.1 success criterion 4.1.3).
- Many documents are in less accessible formats, for example PDF. Documents published on or after 23 September 2018 must have an accessible format
Disproportionate burden
PDFs and other documents
Given the nature of our work, many of the documents and reports that we publish in PDF format on our website, particularly on our Resource Hub, are scientific and produced for a specialist audience. The following PDF material may not meet accessibility standards, if it would be a would be a disproportionate burden to do so within the meaning of the accessibility regulations:
- Materials produced to support externally funded projects (unless accessible products/outputs are specified in the contract).
- Some JNCC reports where the content is necessarily technical in nature.
- Marketing and promotional material (including leaflets/brochures, posters and banners.
- Copies of Powerpoint presentations which have been converted into a PDF format.
The resources listed above may contain necessary scientific and technical content which may not be considered to be plain English. Material published on our Resource Hub will be accompanied by a short summary or abstract which is suitable for a wider audience. Some of these resources also contain a number of images, including maps, which are essential content, but for which text descriptions are not included due to the number of images and/or the complexity of the material contained within the images.
We believe that fixing the issues associated with all of these PDFs would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. From August 2021 we have been exploring options for producing more accessible versions of some of our corporate and most visited resources. This includes the development of templates and guidance for all staff to enable them to create more accessible reports and documents.
Accessible versions of our resources can be made available on request.
Interactive tools
Complex user interfaces for interactive mapping are difficult to make accessible with current technology and we believe that doing so now would be a disproportionate burden within the meaning of the accessibility regulations. We will make another assessment when we next do a major re-development of the mapping applications, likely to be in 3 to 5 years.
Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations
- PDFs and other non-HTML documents published before September 2018 do not need to be accessible. We will provide accessible versions on request.
- Pre-recorded videos published before 23 September 2020. This includes content published on platforms such as YouTube.
How we tested this website
The following websites were last fully tested in August 2021 by Test Partners Ltd:
- our main website platform, available at https://jncc.gov.uk/
- our specialist microsites, available at Resource Hub https://hub.jncc.gov.uk
The following websites were last tested in June 2019 and are due to be tested again in 2023:
- Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) https://sac.jncc.gov.uk
- Marine Habitat Classification https://mhc.jncc.gov.uk
We followed GOV.UK guidance on deciding how to check the JNCC website as follows:
- We used an automated website mapping tool to identify all the pages and documents on the website.
- We identified the subdomains that are out of scope and removed all the pages from the page list.
- We removed all the documents from the list. We are currently using the disproportionate burden exemption, but we are planning a programme of remediation.
- We grouped the remaining pages according to type, such as all the News pages, Blog pages, etc.
- We manually assessed a number of pages from each group to determine the level of consistency within the group and the type of content on those pages.
- We manually assessed all the "unique" pages such as the home page and Contact Us to determine the type of content on those pages.
- We identified a minimum representative subset of pages that contain examples of the most common layouts, components and features, including:
- The header and footer.
- Important “unique pages”.
- Pages with text content and data tables.
- Pages with informational images, images of text and video content.
- Interactive elements such as maps, lightboxes, forms, tabbed interfaces and content filtering.
- We conducted a manual WCAG audit on the representative subset of pages.
An automated accessibility test of all the pages is in progress and the accessibility statement will be updated when it is completed.
We will conduct further rounds of fixing and retesting until all the WCAG non-conformances have been fixed.
What we’re doing to improve accessibility
We are regularly reviewing the content on our site to identify accessibility issues that need to be resolved. We will update this page when we identify issues, and when issues are fixed.
We have produced document templates and guidance for all staff to use in order to create accessible documents, such as reports.
We previously (August 2021) advised that we anticipated migrating the website in April 2022 to the newest version of our current content management system, and that as part of that migration we would be addressing the accessibility of both the structure of the website and of the content. As of January 2023, this migration task is underway, but is not yet complete. It is now expected to be complete by the end of April 2023.
Preparation of this accessibility statement
This statement was first published 3 July 2019 and subsequently updated on 23 August 2021. It was last updated on 23 January 2023.
Published: .