Statements

Statements

Statement of Ethics

Accessibility statement

This statement applies to content published on www.nijac.gov.uk It does not apply to content or services hosted by third party domains such as Mailchimp

This website is run by the Department of Finance It is designed to be used by as many people as possible. The text should be clear and simple to understand. You should be able to:

• zoom in up to 300 per cent without problems
• navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
• navigate most of the website using speech recognition software; and
• use 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 if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We know parts of this website are not fully accessible. For example:

• some pages have poor colour contrast; and
• many documents are in PDF and MS Office formats and are not fully accessible to screen reader software.

Feedback and contact information

If you need information from this website in a different format email us at judicialappointments@nijac.gov.uk and tell us:

• the web address (URL) of the content
• your name and email address; and
• the format you need, for example, audio CD, braille, British Sign Language, large print or accessible PDF.

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 you think we’re not meeting the accessibility requirements email us at judicialappointments@nijac.gov.uk and we will look into the issue.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’) in Northern Ireland.

If you are not happy with our response contact the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Northern Ireland Judicial Appointments Commission 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 and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content that is not accessible is outlined below with details of:

• the accessibility problems
• where it fails the WCAG 2.1AA success criteria; and
• when we plan to fix it.

Documents

A number of documents are non-accessible for a number of reasons which may result in a loss of meaning for users of screen readers or present issues for users with moderately low vision. For example, some documents:

• do not have a language set. This is a failure of WCAG 3.1.1 (language of page)
• have areas of insufficient colour contrast. This is a failure of WCAG 1.4.3 (contrast minimum)
• do not have a correct reading order. This fails WCAG 1.3.1 (info and relationships) and 1.3.2 (meaningful sequence)
• do not have alternative text for images. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content)
• have non-text content like bullet points and dotted lines which are not read aloud correctly. This fails WCAG 1.1.1 (non-text content)
• have tables which are not marked up correctly. This fails WCAG 1.3.1 (info and relationships); and
• are scanned documents with errors in elements including reading order, language, and title. This fails WCAG 1.3.1 (info and relationships).

Disproportionate burden

Some text is present that has a contrast ratio less than 4.5:1, or large text (larger than 18 point or 14 point bold) has a contrast ratio less than 3:1. This fails WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum). Adequate contrast is necessary to all users, especially users with low vision. We plan to collaborate with our third party website provider to identify and fix these issues.

We’ve assessed the cost of fixing the issues with navigation and accessing information. Some of our services are managed by third party providers, including the management of the website (which includes altering contrast levels). In some circumstances the third party providers have assessed the cost of fixing the issues and believe that there are not the resources to fix these issues at present. Our underlying content management system requires upgrading from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8. It is our intention to address these issues during that upgrade.

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

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.

PDFs and other documents

Some of our PDF documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have PDFs with information on how users can access our services. We plan to either fix these or replace them with accessible HTML pages.

Any new PDFs or MS Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

How we tested this website

This website was and is currently being tested for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 level A and level AA, and these tests have been carried out internally during September 2020 by the Marketing and Communications Manager.

This website was last tested on 22 September 2020.

We used the Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM) approach to deciding on a sample of pages to test.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We plan to identify and fix issues as and when opportunities arise. For example, when uploading new content and when upgrading from Drupal 7 to 8.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 22 September 2020. It was last updated on 23 September 2020.