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Accessibility Statement

This accessibility statement applies to content hosted on the wmca.org.uk domain (and its subdomains governance.wmca.org.uk).

This website is run by West Midlands Combined Authority. 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 in your browser
  • zoom in up to 300% 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)

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 are not fully accessible:

  • most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • heading levels should only increase by one. Not all headings are in a logical order
  • Issues on the Older Persons Concessionary Pass Renewal website
  • Issues on the Thrive At Work portal

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:

  • email customer.services@tfwm.org.uk
  • call 0345 303 6760
  • write to Customer Services, 16 Summer Lane, Birmingham, B19 3SD

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 10 days.

There is more information about what we can provide and our process in our reasonable adjustments policy.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact the Equalities Team:

  • email EqualitiesTeam@wmca.org.uk
  • call 0345 303 6760 and ask for the Equalities Team
  • write to Equalities Team, 16 Summer Lane, Birmingham, B19 3SD

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).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We provide a text relay service for people who are D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

Our offices and travel shops have audio induction loops.

You can read more about reasonable adjustments we are able to provide.

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

West Midlands Combined Authority is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance

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 listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Some images and icons do not have appropriate alt-text, or have alt-text where they don’t need it. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.1.1 Non-text content. We will fix these by the end of January 2023.

Some form elements do not have appropriate labels, or are not associated with their text labels. This fails WCAG success criterions 1.1.1. Non-text content, 1.3.1 Info and relationships, 2.4.6. We will fix these by the end of January 2023.

Selecting an area on the In My Area page redirects users to a new page without warning. This fails WCAG success criterions 3.2.2 On Input and 2.1.1 Keyboard. We will fix these by the end of January 2023.

Some page heading elements are not in a sequentially descending order. This fails WCAG success criterions 1.3.1 Info and Relationships. We will fix these by the end of January 2023.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations (governance.wmca.org.uk)

Navigation links do not describe their context to screen readers and are hard to understand for screen reader users. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.3.1 Info and relationships. We will fix these by the end of January 2023.

The document language isn’t identified in the markup. This fails WCAG success criterion 3.1.1 Language of page. We will fix these by the end of January 2023.


Some text, such as headings, are too small. This fails WCAG success criterion 3 Understandable. We will fix these by the end of January 2023.

Links have insufficient colour contrast. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.4.3 The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. We will fix these by the end of January 2023.

Ensures links have discernible text. This fails WCAG success criterion 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value. We will fix these by the end of January 2023.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations (https://www.wmca.org.uk/thrive-at-work/)

Some interface elements do not have sufficient colour contrast. For example, buttons, text and hovering on buttons.

Some elements change too fast, and are hard to understand. For example, the what we do slider on the homepage.

Page elements are not contained within landmarks, so they cannot be skipped.

Some images do not have alt-text.

Some decorative elements have alt-text, when they don’t need them.

Some buttons are too small for some users to click.

Some links do not have hover states.

Some form elements do not scale appropriately on mobile, and require horizontal scrolling.

Some links do not have appropriate link text.

Some text does not use a sufficient weight, or is presented in a way that is hard to read.

The service is difficult to navigate using a keyboard or screen reader software. For example, some blocks of content do not have a defined role or tab order does not follow logical order.

Forms are difficult to navigate using a keyboard. For example, because some form controls are missing a ‘label’ or ‘select’ tag and some form inputs are not grouped.

Some buttons and accordions cannot be selected using a keyboard.

Some buttons do not have descriptive labels.

The service might not display correctly in system high contrast mode due to the way pages are styled.

Some automatically generated links do not make sense out of context. For example, links to read more details about, or buying a specific ticket.

We will fix these by the end of January 2023.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations (https://cdnpremium.blob.core.windows.net/cdn/wmcaassets/airquality/v1/module-1/story.html, https://cdnpremium.blob.core.windows.net/cdn/wmcaassets/airquality/v1/module-2/story.html,  https://cdnpremium.blob.core.windows.net/cdn/wmcaassets/airquality/v1/module-3/story.html)

You cannot zoom to make text larger without content spilling off the screen.

You cannot change colours to increase contrast.

The focus order is different to the visual order on some navigation items, such as the toolbar at the bottom.

Some buttons lack appropriate labels.

Links lack appropriate warning that they will open in a new tab or window.

Visually hidden buttons are still interactive.

Some colours do not meet minimum contrast ratios.

Tables do not have appropriate markup.

Accessible HTML alternatives

Alternatives are available for each Air Quality e-learning module:

You can also open these alternatives on the second page of each module.

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

PDFs and other documents

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. For example, we do not plan to fix the WMCA 2018-2019 Annual Plan.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards. Where possible we will also include a HTML version of the document.

Some text content is not written in plain English. When we publish new content, we’ll make sure it meets the accessibility standards.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared on 16 September 2020. It was last reviewed on 1 November 2022.

This website was last tested on 28 October 2022. The test was carried out by the Digital and Data department at West Midlands Combined Authority.

We used this approach to decide on a sample of pages to test:

  • All content pages are built on templates
  • We checked all live content pages and created a list of common templates
  • We chose an example for each template which used the most template functionality.